You Drivers Do Have Your Uses, I Suppose... | Rose's Fics (2024)

- All chapter titles and summaries belong to the discography of the band Genesis.
- Any poems/quotes/etc. that appear in chapter notes are mine unless otherwise noted.
- I will only add tags for content strictly as it appears, to keep the flow of the story under control.

Chapter 01: Squonk - "Alive at both ends, but a little dead in the middle."

A wise man once told me: "I grew up Catholic, so I have a wonderful sense of guilt." He also told me that "silence is tacit permission," which is...quite something, and that "anything that is symmetrical stops the idea of hierarchy." That last one...I like that.

Addam Origo was near about sixteen years old when he first began to really see more of Alrest than just the walls of Aureus and the streets of Auresco, if perhaps summers at Aletta. His uncle, High Prince Zettar, was extremely loath to ever let him be seen by the public - what indignity to have the bastard child represent their throne even at the merest periphery of the eyes of the world! He wouldn't have it. But, as the years wore on, his father, the king (his name was Khanoro, though hardly anyone ever addressed him as such), grew weary of Zettar's demands.

"Zettar! I have suffered your petty vanities long enough, Brother. My son is practically old enough to rule without a regent - should that time come, Architect save us," he shot the caveat to silence the High Prince's protests.

"I will no longer have him cloistered here in the confines of our rule. He is of true and admirable character, Brother, and you know this. Addam deserves to learn of the world, and appreciate it as he does Torna. He will travel with us to Indol for next week's summit."

Zettar snarled. "If it must be so, Brother. But I will not stand to have him in the Praetor's audience with us."

The king made a low noise and turned away, his silence the only marker of agreement he would give.

When the Tornan craft arrived at Indol, Addam disembarked with less trepidation than Zettar would have liked. He had more or less figured out that he would always be an outcast, even from the truest favors of his father, but rather than balk at the implications, he would make the best of them, he had decided.

The king's entourage dispatched Addam to the Praetorium library, where they knew he would keep busy and make good use of the time. If he somehow made a shocking discovery from some source within, he would be reserved and judicious with his well-formed opinion, at least.

Various monks milled about the stacks, not conversing with each other even in hushed tones, but compiling reference material or copying doctrine from some text or other. One of the Indoline, however, was even stiffer in his digilence. Sat at a desk near the entrance but off to one side, he scanned a book so thick it had to be some sort of bible. He wasn't just looking for answers, but rather searching for them.

A tall Blade stood behind him, out of place among the pristine white and gold monks and ornamentation with his black leather armor, angular bronzed face, and ashy brown hair pulled back into a careless ponytail. He kept at parade rest, but one of his legs had twitched out into a confident semi-slouch. His deep-set eyes narrowed on Addam, and if he was hiding a smile he was doing so impeccably. Addam stared defiantly back.

The monk looked up, sensing the disturbance. "What is it, Minoth?" The Blade said nothing, since Addam was there in plain view. No quip, no insolence. "Ah. The bastard boy from Torna. Come to gawk, is it?"

The man was oily, lithe. His long arms gave a different, more off-putting portent than Addam's lanky frame. Addam supposed he was a Magister - higher rank than a standard monk, but not by much; certainly much more rank-and-file than those levels directly preceding the Praetor. He had been briefed on that much, and decided to hazard a usage of the term.

"Not at all, Magister...?"

"Amalthus," the man said simply. From the sound of it, he didn't even like saying his own name. His impression of Addam's knowledge was one of calculation, not pride.

"Good to make your acquaintance, sir," Addam lied heartily. "I've been meaning to find some history - of Indol, or any other Titan."

Amalthus raised a languid eyebrow. "Minoth, show him." Addam noticed that the Blade had looked jealous of his Driver's current pursuit - he hungered for the knowledge that was in the myriad books, but couldn't ever get away from the horrid Magister, Addam realized. It was rather like his own plight, though perhaps in reverse.

As he struggled to match the Blade's large strides, he tried to strike up a conversation, some small bit of affinity. "Minoth, was it?"

"The very one, Prince." The reply was far warmer than he had expected, and the voice that gave it was a beautifully melodius one, though with some ragged notes. Wait, how had he known...?

"Do you like to read?" Architect, that was juvenile. "You could say that. But, more often, I like to write." Hidden depths! "Oh? Why's that?"

"My Driver there likes to find out everything he needs to know for himself, and only tells me of the particular bits that concern me. So, I make my own reading."

"You don't share it with anyone?" Minoth shook his head. "It's not my place. I'm just a Blade."

Addam frowned. They had already reached the bookshelf of interest; he'd have to probe further another time.

"Will I see you again next time, Minoth?" The Blade stiffened. "If the Architect wills it," he said mechanically, and strode away.

In his newly expanded travels, Addam also made an acquaintance closer to his age and ken: Hugo Ardanach, second son of the current Emperor of Mor Ardain and a boy of surprisingly fastidious comportment for all of his twelve years. The two subordinate royals became fast friends, sparring together (Hugo often bested Addam despite the dramatic differences in stature) and otherwise making excellent adolescent use of their time spent in each other's company.

One such occasion saw the two youths watching an Ardainian sunset from the Jarlin Wing of Hardhaigh Palace, attended by one of the Empire's most treasured Blades, Aegaeon. The Water Blade had the air of a warrior about him always, his posture impeccable and his low, even voice making available constant steadying samples from an ocean of wisdom. There was no natural phenomenon quite as marvelous as the smooth, inmitable timing of his breathing, and Addam could certainly understand why his martial prowess was such as to strike fear into the hearts of enemies of even such a fledgling power, when compared to Torna, as Mor Ardain was.

Still, from time to time, the prince saw Aegaeon cast grave and even slightly perturbed glances on the departing figure of Brighid, his fellow Blade and the Jewel of the Empire, when they were about to engage on the first of a day's plans. The Emperor's father, though no longer occupying the throne, was still Aegaeon's Driver, as he had had a close call with the clutching hand of old age just before his son's succession, and only Brighid had returned to her Core on the tips of those hair's breadth's breaths. Of course, it wasn't practice to forcibly cut the resonance, and so differently bonded the two Ardainian Blades remained.

The current Emperor himself was habitually sickly as well, being of a frailer constitution than befitted a world leader. It had become practically common knowledge around the Empire that one of his sons would soon take up the ermine mantle, and of course none knew this more intimately than young Hugo. He confided in Addam often, telling of his fears that his brother, Domhnall, would lack the aptitude to awaken their traditionally inherited Blades, and that it would fall on his woefully petite stature to guide an entire grieving nation.

Addam understood the fear of ruling without caveat, but at the same time couldn't feel further from it, being so remotely linked to the throne as he was. He would never rule. He knew this as a matter of course, and because Zettar had mercilessly drilled it into his head at every opportunity, especially recently as he had begun to engage even minimally in actual monarchical matters.

Their entire kingdom didn't even have a designated Blade lying in wait, since the Paragon, though stolen for a good nine years already and unbonded for a fair few back beyond that, was more a military holding than anything else. They didn't try to humanize him, not directly, but he had shaped his own character, it seemed. Rather nice for him, a little cheering. Addam's thoughts, then, returned to the resident Blades.

"Do you think they're happy?" Hugo's head tilted to peer up at him. "Hmm?"

"Brighid and Aegaeon," Addam clarified. "Do you think they like being Blades of the Empire?"

Hugo tucked a fist underneath his chin in noble thought. "Why would they not? They have the intrinsic respect of every citizen of the Empire, and others besides. What more could they want?"

"Autonomy is the word, I think," said Addam, and he was thinking of that Blade from the Praetorium. Told where to go, told what to do, practically told what to think, if only just told what not to.

"They have their hobbies, or so you've told me, but they don't even really take them up of their own volition." He kept his voice low as he said this, because Architect forbid that Aegaeon find out anyone knew of his doll collection. "It's just...the way they are."

"Why, of course," Hugo replied. "That's something else, too. Their records are preserved for them, and faithfully too. Not many Blades can say that." His small chest puffed out just a tad at the boastworthy achievement.

Addam sighed. "I suppose you're right, Hugo." And perhaps in this context he was, because of all Blades Brighid and Aegaeon probably had it best. "I mean, are they really people? They don't get to grow up at all. I'm finding more and more that that's the best part of life - not that you would know, eh, dear Hugo?"

The avuncular nudge earned him a weak elbow into his side, because the younger boy was still thinking. "Well, of course they're people. And if they ever do become my Blades, I shall endeavor to treat them with all the respect they command - not just as servants of the Empire, but as individuals."

Addam slung an arm around his friend's shoulders. "That sounds good to me! I'll hold you to it."

When the Emperor's father finally passed on, the Ardainian Senate quarreled mightily as to whether his erstwhile Blade should be immediately reawakened, or left dormant until such a time as the Emperor too joined those not living and so returned Brighid to her Core. In the end, the power-hungry concensus ruled that Aegaeon should be brought back into the fore posthaste. Much to Hugo's chagrin, Domnhall failed the aptitude test bloodily, and quickly developed just as burning a resentment for his younger brother - though most likely it had always been lurking, given their so dichotomized temperaments.

This event rerouted the line of succession before it was even officially called into effect, and though the depths of Aegaeon's ever-crystalline soul were a great support, it became harder and harder for Hugo to uphold his own imperial posture after he awakened the Water Blade once more into their world. Now it was Brighid giving her partner Blade curious stares, and peeking wistfully into his chambers to gaze at the array of quite frankly creepy dolls gathering dust.

Aegaeon was far less diligent with a journal, but the saving grace was that he had not been, by some bureaucratic nonsense, made to reawaken by the hand of the current Emperor, and then to die again so soon; their pragmatism served at least that well. When Hugo turned sixteen, he was officially crowned seventeenth Emperor of Mor Ardain, fourth of the House of Ardanach under that noblest Crest of Hardhaigh, and his faithful attendant stood by with the utmost of grace.

The Emperor died with practically poetic timing (ever in service of the Empire, it seemed), and there was not so much mourning for him as there was a breath of relief that the tangles were aside and life could proceed. Brighid emerged proud and beautiful from her glowing Core, and she preened and she prissed in the most valiant of ways, and she was a perfect counterpart to the reticent Aegaeon. Addam was beyond tears to see them attend at Hugo's side, and him at theirs, and he was thankful that such truly noble Blades were granted the treatment they deserved.

Even though they couldn't remember each other, in each awakening they grew to be dear companions over and over, sharing thoughts and perspectives both explicitly and implicitly between the two of them. Fire and water, sword and shield, opposites but so alike, tempering and shaping each other in the passing vestiges as much if not more so than their Drivers, even if not always shared, did. Perhaps Hugo was right. What more could they want?

And, when the coronation was over and he had snuck one last ruffle to his dear friend's confoundingly smooth and perpetually well-groomed hair, careful to avoid the golden wing brooch newly tucked behind an ever-royal ear, Addam thought once more to that Indoline Magister's Blade. Where was his protection, his reverence? What was the use, to live in the gilded cage of a sanctum, or even a low-order nobleman's house, if you were bound by no will of your own to your Driver's whims, cruel or otherwise?

"What do you think, Nuncle?" He couldn't remember when he'd started calling the old Titan, whose real name was Azurda and who was not nearly as fearsome as his mother continent, upon whose back they sat by way of the palace's esteemed Saschum Gardens, by that silly, silly name, but he wasn't the type to get ashamed about it as he got older, not in the least, and somehow neither was Nuncle himself.

Back to the opening question, though: strangely, or perhaps not strangely at all, Azurda didn't ask what about. "Me? I don't think much. I try to keep to...ah, limited thoughts. One can only but try to do so, if one is a Titan such as myself."

Addam sighed. "Here I am, a sixteen-year-old boy - no, young man - and my oldest, not to say closest, friend in the world is a dotty old dragon."

"Hmph. I'll have you know that I have many hobbies and opinions that are well worth your esteem, young man."

"What happened to those limited thoughts?" Addam poked up with a sideways squint out of his left eye, and the slow horn gave a generous arc to point to nowhere in particular. "They are only limited to one such as me. To one such as you, why, they're as vast as the Cloud Sea."

"Oh, I'm sure you think so."

Now, Azurda craned his neck far more limberly than anyone would expect him to be able to back in Addam's direction; the young prince was leaned against his side with head turned up toward the boundless sky. "And you don't?"

"Why should your thoughts be so much greater than mine, or, say, my father's? You're just a person, in the end, even if your nose is both literally and figuratively far too large and you've got actual fungi growing between your toes."

Azurda snorted warm breath at the crass, if correct, affront (full of hot air, he was, you see). "We Blades and Titans have been in this world far longer than any of you human Tornans can ever hope to remain. Of course it will weigh on us, and mightily."

"But..." Addam started slowly, "You limit your own thoughts, right?" If Azurda had eyebrows, he would be arching them. "Whatever can you mean, Addam?"

The Blades had been there, but fifty times over in the same span of age, was what he meant, of course. "Well, no one's gone and messed around with your head and made you think that you'd just better shut up and sit there, you silly old fool, have they?"

A rumbling laugh came, at last. "I think you've gone round the twist a bit, my boy. I don't know that there is anyone who's in the business of telling the Architect's creations to know their place, with any more venom than they might give to such a nettlesome princeling as yourself." So, an eye for an eye, and all that.

Shifting in the carefully groomed sand that was most certainly not maintained with the intention of habitually receiving the bottom end of a bastard prince's wrinkled trousers, Addam brushed an aimless hand back to twist in the grass that inexplicably grew on the offspring Titan's back. To be truthful, he wasn't exactly certain if Azurda enjoyed being, well, petted like that, if he even felt it at all.

"Didn't the Architect himself do that for us, though? Making the Blades lose their memories every time their Driver dies? Making them unable to live and think and breathe and be without a Driver?" Azurda was silent for a long moment before rejoining.

"It may serve us both well for you to...limit your own thoughts on this topic. I don't know what made you think of this, or who you're thinking of, but...whether it's your father perpetuating worship of the cycle or other nations upholding their own traditions of our world's firmament, this is far too much for anyone, human or Titan, to ponder about."

And the Blades, Addam thought, well, they can't - they haven't been afforded the opportunity, not really. Nuncle might have been right, he might not have been. Regardless, Addam slumped small against the great stony back and rankled about whichever it truly was, and whether or not it was possible to know at all, in the end.

BACKSTORY, COME GET YOUR BACKSTORY!!! Quite simply, Addam Origo my beloved. Please let me know if I start flanderizing the lore, but we note:

- Torna worships a quite frankly broken system, and we don't know who started that
- Mor Ardain venerates but still possesses and uses, creating a false equivalency
- Indol treats Blades as merely ancillary, simple servile tools, sidelines to doctrine and glory
- Uraya is somewhat indifferent ethics-wise (see: Vandham and Roc, to a certain extent) or blithely accepting
- Tantal doesn't exist at all yet because, well, y'know, and there are no Blade NPCs therein (only one in Torna but shhh)
- Coeia & Spessia are just examples of the myriad smaller nations whose views we need not examine in detail
- Gormott has little to no national identity as of yet, though there are Gormotti Blades to consider
- Leftheria is even less developed toward that end, and is more focused on a culture of geography
- Nopon trade guilds are more or less unaffected - they've got other shiny things to worry about

Without trying to make Addam a total white savior who somehow appropriates all of Bladekind's thoughts towards their own rights into his own goofy mind, he's definitely (I think) the type of person who, sheltered as he has been, sees one peep of the Real World and gets hyperfixated on what that could mean even as relates to his own seemingly/relatively obscure position in the hierarchy, literal or figurative, of things. Jin is more focused on the idea of possession, Brighid on the actual passing of memory and identity, but Addam has seen Minoth exactly one time and, out of context of the proverbial "Auresco's streets are home to humans and Blades and even Titans alike, of course" he's heard his whole life, things immediately start to shift and sway and reflect upon each other. At least, that's the general vibe of what I'm going for, and hopefully I haven't ruined it by laying it all out down here!

It is also at this point that I would like to direct any fans of Addam/Hugo to orbitalknight's wonderful nothing so noble & to carry a crown (although I don't understand the claim that Addam and Aegaeon never speak in TTGC...could be rose-colored glasses on my part).

I love this take on Hugo's resonance with Brighid by JeliBelski. Check out my Aegaeon & Brighid fic too, if that's up your alley! It provides more context/instantiation to my concept of their bond/relationship, even though it was not written to directly flow in this timeline.

I've considered linking to a playlist with recommended listening tracks for each chapter along with the title tracks, but that seems fairly heavy-handed and it's also a LOT of little decisions to make, for me. If that interests you, please let me know!

Chapter 02: Blood on the Rooftops - "Though your eyes see shipwrecked sailors, you're still dry."

Who let these children grow up? Who let the angst of adulthood, the pragmatism of maturity, infect and assassinate their loving dreams? Would you go that way? All signs say shouldn't, don't, won't. And yet you go. Take it, whatever it may be. Stay not here in silence. Expanse inspires fear, but oh, how it can inspire.

And, they did indeed meet again. At various occasions when world leaders convened, Addam would be there as a son, though caitiff, of Torna, and Amalthus would be there as a nobleman envoy, creeping an expansion of his status and influence across Alrest. Still, in between conferences, the Magister probed the royal libraries, and Minoth stood attendant behind his seat in every one of them.

Amalthus's steely gaze followed Addam as he waved, smiling to Minoth. The final stages of his growth spurt meant that, thankfully, he could finally look over the monk's head and straight at his oft-met companion.

Over those four years, their brief conversations had become somewhat deeper, and Minoth divulged more of his most private feelings (which is to say, those selfsame surreptitiously scrawled stories) to the young man who shared somewhat of the same shunned identity. Addam's title became more of a fond, jabbed nickname than a sarcastic but perfunctory tag, even as it rang truer in his golden age and maturity.

Of a sudden, Amalthus ascended to a Quaestor, and Minoth was absent from the more hidden halls. Addam knew his own presence was a sole comfort, and he cursed his friend's cruel Driver mightily more than once in that time.

Then, just as suddenly, Minoth reappeared. Alone.

It had been so long since Addam had been of the height to meet Minoth's Core Crystal at eye level that when the Blade seemed more fatigued, more weathered than usual, he didn't notice the most obvious outward sign.

"It's good to see you again, my prince."

Addam smiled at the familiar address. "Likewise you, Minoth. I hate to ask, but where's you-know-who?"

Minoth shuffled his feet for a second, hands of crossed arms clenching slightly, before he offered with a grimace, "I'm glad to tell you that I don't know."

Addam was taken aback. "You don't? I thought all Blades-" Minoth interrupted him with a somber tap on his Core Crystal: the bright blue that matched his eyes was now garishly marred with a sickly cast of red.

"He considered me disposable. So, he made an experiment out of me." To go with the revelation, an involuntary shudder.

Taking note of Minoth's more abrupt and vulnerable honesty, Addam gingerly asked, "What type of experiment?"

"I'm a Flesh Eater now. Got human cells in me, God knows who from. But, it means I don't need to rely on a Driver. I can be free of him, of his thoughts and his demands. Of his influence."

Addam twiddled with the pieces of the puzzle, not sure how to tackle this most enormous elephant, so he didn't. "You're here in the library...but you're not reading. Were you waiting here for me?"

Minoth nodded, grinning the most genuinely that Addam had ever seen. "Waiting for you, Addam. You're the only one who was a friend to me, all those years. Those monks thought me unclean from the get-go, even before this."

He gestured at his Core Crystal again. "I know if you ever awaken a Blade, you won't treat them like a tool."

Now some verbal paces removed from the blunt, uncomfortable confrontation of human (or not? or both?) experimentation, Addam was warming to the conversation.

"Of course not - you know that in Torna, we worship the cycle of life that the Architect gave Blades and Titans, and us humans living between. Is it really so bad in Indol?"

The topic had been brusquely skirted almost always, and now Minoth crossed his arms. "Well, Amalthus is the worst of them - he and the mad scientist who did this to me. The fucking clinical guile with which they acted was inhuman, inhumane."

The words were spat, almost choked on. "But...yeah. They're not huge fans, none of them."

Huge fans...the term was largely reductive, of course - Minoth said that was called litotes, though this was a bit of a stiffer version, indeed. It was unlike him to hem and haw, anyway, though; that was usually Addam's job. Not that he wasn't or couldn't be talkative, not that he didn't say so very many eloquent words if he had the occasion to. Titan's foot, but it had taken a lot to get him out of his shell.

"Do you want to come back to Torna with me?" Addam blurted out suddenly, irrelevant to all his prior thoughts.

"Torna? Ha! They don't trust you to throw a pot when you're doing just what you're told. How do you think they'll look on the king's illegitimate son thieving an experimental Blade from one of the prime Quaestors of Indol? Not gonna fly, Prince."

Oh. Yes. That was right, wasn't it. But stealing? Could it really be called stealing? Addam matched the laughter to disguise his sorrow, and yes, his confusion. "Well, but I got a rise out of you, at least!"

"Oh, keep talking, funny man," Minoth said, his dismissiveness not distracting from the mirth mixed with pain in his eyes.

"Will you think about it?"

The Blade (or- maybe he wasn't, anymore) scoffed. "Sure. I'll consider it, at least."

Excitable chap that he was, Addam seemed to be satisfied by this.

The next time they met was in Uraya, a couple of months later. Addam had been put at liberty to make his own excursion to and study of the Titan there, and after a day of sightseeing in the most glorious stretch of the stomach, he came up to the Fonsa Myma watchtower to tuck into his meal of a Wrapped Glarna Bake and a sloppily-packaged Rainbow Parfait.

"Fancy meeting you here, Prince." The voice shot at him from the back side of the turret.

"Minoth? Is that you?"

"Unfortunately." A towering figure to accompany the voice rolled around from its leaning place, inexplicably caped in a puce-gray cloak.

"Why the disguise? Is anything wrong?" Even from beneath the cloak, Addam could feel himself being cast with an impatient searching gaze, like Minoth was re-assessing his trust from the ground up but waiting to ultimately abandon the gauge out of a tired, snappish nihilism.

The hood was tossed back, and a gasp escaped from the prince's mouth. Jagging down Minoth's left temple, partially covering his eye socket and associated contents, was a fresh scar, scabs still prickly and oozing thin pus.

"Ooh...that looks nasty."

"Oh, you gathered that much, did you?"

"Well, yes. I can see why you wouldn't want to walk around a pleasant city like this one with a wound like that on your face."

Minoth scowled and thrashed the hood back up. "Nobody wants me walking around this city or any other."

A little off-put but not overly rattled, Addam continued his line of thought. "Perhaps that's why it's so common for soldiers to wear full-cover armor. It might be a little too foreboding for the people they're protecting, but it's more consistently presentable than wounds. Though, come to think of it, they shouldn't be on duty if they have injuries anyway! The injustices you find everywhere these days..."

"Addam." The genuine denomination got his attention. "Hm?"

"Stop monologuing and wise up! I have to keep a lid on my face because if I don't I'll be locked up."

"Oh, come on! What could you possibly have done? Ohh-- Did you get in a fight with a palace guard? Nopon extortionist? Petty thief?"

Hood down and hackles up, Minoth made to invade Addam's personal space, repeatedly jabbing a finger dangerously close to his eye socket as he did so.

"I'm a Blade, Addam. I've gotten cuts before, but never like this." The stabs gradually began to punctuate and then change course into the prince's chest.

"A Blade gets a scrape, the wound heals in an hour. I last tangled with an Anlood three days ago. We're not supposed to have these, now are we?" Those last three words: stab, stab, stab.

Swallowing his panic, Addam tried to reason back, to de-escalate. "I see. That's certainly a little odd, but after all....well, I think it could look distinguished. Now you really feel like a warrior! The Anloods'll all think twice before running you down now, surely."

It was no use, apparently. Minoth flopped down onto the slope of the roof.

"You're not getting it, Prince. This is a result of the experiment. Amalthus is to blame. Well, besides my own carelessness. Twice over, I suppose."

Addam took a gentler seat himself. "So explain it to me."

"Blades don't scar. No matter how deep the cut, how vital the area, how poisonous the weapon, we don't get a trace, so long as our Core Crystal's intact. We're impermeable, impervious, and impermanent."

Avoiding the last descriptor of the trio, Addam tried to process the information towards a useful next statement.

"If you're saying this is a product of you having human cells, what other dangers are you in?"

Minoth flicked a miniscule chunk of gravel out towards the bay. "No idea."

"Will it get infected, then?" Another pebble, another "No idea."

"Will it heal at all?" A third stone, no answer.

"Something else on your mind?" He got a grunt. "How about that last part? What's 'twice over'?"

"Back when you first saw me after I'd had the procedure, I said that the...scientist, technician, researcher, what have you, did this to me. Well, that wasn't all true. I went willingly. Being cursed as a failure like this beats being chained to him."

"A failure?"

Minoth scoffed, as ever. "Yeah. They wanted to make superhuman-superBlade hybrids with near-immortality, no loss of memory, and special mutant powers."

With the pronouncement came a dark chuckle. "Now all they have is a cowboy with creaky bones who'll be croaking long before the Indoline get much more than halfway to dying. It's a nasty thing. I don't like to dwell on it."

He couldn't hide from Addam's sage analysis that he did dwell on it, and often. To make matters worse, the prince wordlessly offered him a corner piece of savory, eggy spiced bread pudding. He took it despite the blow to his pride and the companionable, pitying nature of it all.

"Don't forget what I said," Addam put in after a long moment. Minoth didn't answer, focusing more on trying to close his left eye without sending shooting pains half a hand-span in every direction - he hadn't tried in a few hours, maybe it was better.

Agh-! Nope. Holistic religions be damned, abomination Blades weren't welcome in Torna, that much he was sure of.

In time, the general milieu of Addam's governmental duties turned out to be taking care of philanthropic endeavors that the king knew would benefit Torna's image, but that would be blown far out of proportion if someone of higher standing were to be involved. It worked out well enough for Addam after all, though, because acting so magnanimous as these trips made him seem only endeared him to the people more and more. Of course, of course, Zettar rankled, but it wasn't as if he would ever deign himself so low as to be triaging a flood on the socially barren Gormott, of all places!

Down Melnath's Shoulder, the waters had come, no longer fettered by the natural foliage and underbrush that belonged on the mountain. No, the desperate Gormotti had stripped it bare of all the resources they could find, and ended up the worse for wear. It was gladdening that such a lush continent was somehow avoiding becoming the target of greedy imperial hands from without, but was this not perhaps worse? Independent as they were, the Gormotti weren't organized enough to make coordinated efforts towards proper and efficient use of all the Titan had to offer, and this was the result.

Which was better? Natural respect and unimposement for the Titan, or control from a higher power to beget a robust foothold on a four-limbed Titan's massive back? Addam was even gladder that he didn't have to decide, only lend his able hands when he could.

Too soon, he was jerked out of his contemplation by a small Gormotti boy - he couldn't have been much past the first or second grade.

"L-Lord Addam?"

"Yes, that's me alright, though you don't need the 'Lord' bit," Addam replied, placing his hands on his knees and crouching down to eye level. "What can I help you with?"

The boy sniffled, trying to compose himself. "Did you- did you find any people down there?" His miniature fist was unballed only to the extent necessary to point a finger down at the not-so-subtly overflowing Lake Nedward.

"No, can't say that I have. All the triage workers are up here. Why, is there something in particular you're looking for?"

He could tell that the boy was focusing mightily to try to stop his face screwing up into ugly, reckless tears, but it wasn't working.

"Come now, it's okay. Do you mind telling me your name?"

"Milton," came the choked-out syllables, and then with a greater sum of scrounged-up fortitude, "It's my parents."

"Oh? Where are they? Were they supposed to be working down at the lake?"

Finally, it was too much, and Milton flailed his sob-wracked body into the open space between Addam's legs.

"My mam and da were swept a-away in the f-flood! They're g-gone and I'm all alone here!" he cried into the prince's chest (well, stomach, really).

Addam had probably never felt quite this stupid in all his life thus far, and certainly he'd had plenty of opportunity. It was natural enough to brace the sobbing child with careful forearms, though he rather wished he wasn't wearing the rough work gloves at the moment. After a moment, he began to propose solutions, because after all that was what he was best at.

"Do you have any other family? An aunt, maybe, or even kindly neighbors? Someone to take you in now that...now."

He felt a vehement head shake against him. "Don't wanna stay here."

"What's that?" The tousled head, complete with tiny ears, jerked back out into the open.

"I don't wanna stay here!" Milton wailed. "Not with the l-lake still here and everyone'll pity me and- and I can't help anyone and I'll just be a burden and I don't wanna stay here anymore."

Addam was ever-so-slightly dumbstruck, but he forced himself to make eye contact with the piercing, wobbling green eyes nonetheless. "Do you...do you want to come with me, then?"

The boy considered this, but only for the briefest second. "Yeah!" he exclaimed, cheering almost instantly, then remembering to slough away the remaining tears before they dried. "I wanna go with you, Lord Addam."

Well. Flora would tease him endlessly about going to Gormott to soothe the scar of a war tragedy and coming back having adopted a child, wouldn't she? Addam patted Milton awkwardly on the shoulder as he straightened up, before putting a hand to his chin to consider the situation.

"I'm not sure it'd be the best for either of us if I just...took you." A certain sarcastic Blade's dismissive words rang in his ears, though of course these circumstances were markedly different. "I suppose you can be a page boy, or some such. Were you taking up lessons in your village?"

Milton scowled. "Yeah..." and Addam laughed at the sight, not unkindly.

"What, you don't take to learning sums?" The boy shook his head, but a smile was beginning to blossom at the corners of his lips.

"I can't say that I blame you, though I enjoyed school well enough when I was your age." Didn't have much else to take to, anyway.

"Well, Milton, I think we'll get on like a house on fire! I have a good friend who's a teacher, and I'll make sure she goes, ah...not easy on you, but-- Ah, it'll be a learning experience for us all, anyway!"

Grinning at last, Milton thrust an eager hand into the prince's own, and they moved off towards the shipyard, to set sail back to Torna.

Some time after first writing this chapter, I go into Cole's room in Fonsa Myma and what do I find but an Anlood statue - I can't make this stuff up!

I once had a sudden thought while reading over this again: if he hasn't closed his eye in a few hours, how did he blink? The answer is simple: Uraya has enough atmospheric ether, aka humidity because it's a swamp biome, to make up for any missing lacrimal fluid, and barring that, well, he's just a tough cookie.

Note here that the word "cowboy" is inexplicably in their Alrestian lexicon, as is "God" as a miscellaneous expletive for Minoth. Yes, there is of course the Architect to swear by, but for the overwhelming majority of occasions it's just part of mental dialogue and this alternative feels natural to me. (Or, in other words, I'm just memeing.)

Chapter 03: Carpet Crawlers - "For my second sight of people, they've more lifeblood than before."

I don't want to feel better, I want to know better.
I should have known that God is not in the meal
but in the sharing of the meal. I should have told you
that holiness resides in needing each other,
in acts of survival made generous.

-- Julian K. Jarboe, "First Contact, Communion"

Months passed. Addam gained ever more appeal among the Tornan people, and began even to represent them at conferences across Alrest. It didn't matter to them that he wasn't fully Tornan in blood, because he more than made up for it in spirit. Along with his popularity, Addam's composure and wisdom grew. Soon after his twenty-first birthday, he made a trip to Indol to discuss refugee policies that were being prepared for the residents of a pair of dying Titans, and ways to manage resources even among settled people. His liaison, of course, was Amalthus.

Addam was too old for pettiness when it came to politics, though it didn't seem to him that these issues needs must be political, but no matter. If he caught Amalthus sneering at him via his precious-rarely-creased undereyes, he made no sign. Why didn't the monk ever take open issue with the prince's friendship with his Blade? It was telling not of self-possession and contextual focus, but of the character and values, one could only think with a grimace. Amalthus didn't care about the Blade. He only used Blades to give him more power among humans.

When the first recess finally came, Addam dashed out to Goetius Port for the afternoon runs of the Wrapped Glarna Bake he had seen and smelled crisping up as the vendors bustled about their stalls that morning. With all luck, he could find Minoth and they could enjoy lunch together, a welcome respite for them both.

But what was this? An unnaturally imposing (even for an Indoline) hooded figure approached him with a wide but uneasy gait.

"Well, Minoth, I didn't think it'd be that easy to find you."

Shrugging around the prince's arm trying to hook into his own as they walked, the Flesh Eater answered, "Consider it a special favor. I've gotten good at being hard to find when I want to be, which is most of the time. Come on, I got us lunch already."

Addam laughed freely, drawing the eyes of a few monks in the plaza. Minoth glared at him, which earned the taller man a wince in response as the prince put a hand to the back of his head.

"Er, sorry. I just thought it funny that you're the one buying me lunch. I doubt Amalthus was ever giving you pocket money, even before." His companion anticipated the unspoken question and gave the simple reply of "Mercenary work."

"Oh. That pays well?"

"Well enough. Folks like not having to shell out for a Driver-Blade pair. Not that they cut their rates in half like they should, by rights. It's not like they know I'm a combo job." It was an interesting peek at the moral fiber, that Minoth should want to refuse the pay that naturally turned out of exchanges not quantified, only qualified.

They had reached a statue of the Architect (based on what model none but Amalthus knew, probably) in Poldis Circle under which to sit, and Addam ruminated on what his friend had told him.

"And Amalthus lets you go to other Titans that often? There can't be much work here in the Praetorium." Minoth waved the doubt away.

"Nah. I just take off for a few days at a time, and there's a Magister who covers for me in the off chance that I need it. Not sure why he does it, but it's good enough for me."

They sat in silence for a while, reducing their main meal to crumbs as Minoth ate in from the corners and Addam picked out from the center in a ridiculously poignant partnership. When they had finished, Addam rummaged in the paper bag for napkins.

"What's this?" He pulled out a pair of Heart Cookies, couched in plush pink paper and tied in a bow. "Oh Minoth, you shouldn't have~!" he cooed in a faux-falsetto tone, getting a rough shove at his shoulder in return.

"You're a clown, Prince. I thought you'd like kitschy shit like that." The air had become slightly stale, even as they shared a tentative smile.

"The gesture is much appreciated, though I find I'm losing my sweet tooth. I'd rather have the knowledge that you're in a place you feel safe than a pastry, no matter how appealing."

Oh, he was on that again, was he? Minoth was silent as Addam rubbed a thumb against the top cookie and watched sprinkles and lustre dust flake dully back into the bag. What a vapid gesture that had been. But what else could he do?

"I've gotta stay here. Amalthus hasn't released his clammy grip on me just yet. They keep taking me back in for tests too. Wanna try some other cockamamie procedure to heal up this old scar." Why had he called it old, anyway? Well, it had more permanence than most things for a Blade.

"Oh no! I rather like the scar. It's so much a part of you."

"A part of me?" Minoth gave an incredulous squint. "This is only the second time you've seen me since I got it."

Addam smiled easily. "That's right. And every time I've thought of you since, it's been there. Almost like it belongs." Without thinking, he put out a hand to stroke the ravaged skin beneath the Blade's eye.

"You're a little cozy there, aren't you Prince?"

"Oh- I, er-" Minoth stopped the backward jerk of Addam's hand with his own wrapped around the prince's wrist, steadying the fingers on his cheek. He'd long forgiven him his airheaded response to a first sight of the mark.

"Thank you, Addam." Minoth brought Addam's hand back down to his side and moved to embrace him.

It was alright to have a scar, wasn't it? The callouses on his hands weren't his, not really. He couldn't remember ever not having them. At least Amalthus hadn't been one to romanticize them as part of his inborn aesthetic. Of course, he never would. They didn't fit with the purpose he needed to serve; they were an annoyance at best.

Without Amalthus's voice in his head, without the flinch of disappointment, without the insistence that he was merely a Blade, a tool for humans to use and abuse and torture and discard, Minoth pressed a quiet, grateful kiss to the crown of Addam's head. Like it or not, he was human.

Independence afforded, Minoth one day ventured to actually make a casual trip to the capital of Torna, Auresco, of his own volition. The market vendors were sensible in their salesmanship and even complimented his cloak, politely, rather than shy away from a foreboding presence such as his.

In particular, he wanted to visit a glassmaker's shop and have a look at those feats of engineering that were Torna's newest and finest writing utensils. He'd been saving up from his mercenary jobs for some nicer paper, too, even though he didn't actually have anything specific to write on it. For Minoth, the chance to indulge in a hobby self-propelled was a new one, and uneasy though he was, the thought that that was just what he was doing was cheering.

So intent on the display in the front stall of the stationery shop was he that he very nearly tripped over a girl examining an array of perfumes in bewitchingly geometric vials on a low shelf. Minoth tried to ignore the incident and quickly step away, but she had already straightened up and was peering interestedly at his collar. She was no appreciably taller when unbent, he noticed.

"Sorry about that, I wasn't paying enough attention," he said briskly, and moved to turn out of the shop. He was stopped by her laugh, however, a short, sharp, and honestly arresting sound.

"I almost don't blame you, I am pretty small." Minoth was pretty sure he was supposed to blush at a comment like that, or at least, it seemed like the human enough thing to do, but instead he just ended up knitting his eyebrows and chewing uncomfortably on the inside of his cheek.

"Well, what got you so distracted that you almost stepped on me? I think I have a right to know." Architect above, why was she so cocky? Minoth couldn't tell if the girl was being more playful or cagey, and he felt himself set into gruffness.

"I'm looking for a Glass Pen. Heard they would sell them at a place like this." He tried to project an air of "and I'm not asking you to confirm or deny," but he wasn't really sure if it had worked.

The girl's eyes narrowed, and indeed, she wasn't possessed of all that much more patience than he was.

"You look Tornan, but a Tornan wouldn't be at all uncertain about the right place to look for an item like that, and in Auresco of all places." Damn, thanks for the vote of confidence, he thought.

"Well," she said, giving a single sharp clap and propping nimble hands on slender hips, "I've got to get going. I'm meeting someone here at Magmine Eatery."

Minoth wasn't sure what was worse, the meet-cute-ish ask for his name that she hadn't done or this unnecessary bulleting of her itinerary at him, though not complete with an "Unfortunately for you...". And surely the mention of the name of the restaurant was meant to be another jab at his sociogeographic lack.

Yet, she hadn't said she was going to go on a date, and as far as he knew women would say it was a date no matter the company, girlfriend or boyfriend. Why bother to mask whatever was going on with that awkward turn of phrase? What was with this woman?

"Flora!" What was with this woman was an insufferably goofy prince, peddling his own wares of gray-streaked sunshine in the fair-to-middling shopping ward. "I should have known you'd be here - oh, and who's this?"

Addam's grin stretched somehow wider as his gaze gave Minoth a handy undressing at the cloak level. "Minoth!" The clap to his shoulder made the Flesh Eater want to crumple on the spot, in more ways than one. "Wonderful to see you, my friend!"

Minoth could just about see the exaggerated motion of a cog turning in the girl's - Flora's - head. Only one rotation it took, and then she was clued in.

"That's him? The 'fabulous auteur of Indol'?" Good gods, Addam, what lies have you been telling?

The prince was still smiling, damn him. "Good to see the two of you are getting along! My my, if only Hugo was here!"

Flora rolled her eyes, but Minoth could see the twinge of a smile sprouting at the corner of her lips. "He's a little bit of a clod, Addam, but..." She looked him over once more. "...I can see where you're coming from."

Addam laughed softly, adding, "He may more be the cloaked terror of Alrest right about now, so don't begrude him a little gaucheness." Sure knew how to make a guest feel welcome, in that case. "Say, Minoth, you will show me your next work when it's done, won't you?"

Minoth shuffled his feet, unsure what to do with his arms; the gloves and gauntlets suddenly felt unseasonably bulky, especially inside the outer sleeves. "You don't have to do that, my prince." At this, Flora's smile spread full, laced with only a tiny bit of some ancillary notion.

"Just about makes you blush, doesn't it? Oh, you silly goose." The term was affectionate, and Minoth felt less gruff about the whole affair now. Still...

"I'd better leave you two alone, I suppose."

Against that sentiment, Addam laid an entirely too familiar hand on his arm and once again Minoth was trapped. "Why don't you join us? There's room for three, I'm sure, and if I haven't told Flora already she must know that you're excellent company!"

The Flesh Eater watched Flora's expression, and she his, and he gave a regretfully (and regrettably) fond, "Not today, Addam. Go on, enjoy yourselves." And the girl was still peering at him, damn her, and Minoth rather wished he hadn't chosen to come to this Titan at all. In the back of his mind, he determined that he probably wouldn't suffer them the company again, either.

A few weeks later when Addam and Minoth happened upon each other in more auspicious, offical circumstances, in an off wing of Hardhaigh Palace on Mor Ardain, the Blade was proffered a carefully, if clumsily, wrapped Glass Pen, and he thought nothing of it, beyond the usual exasperation at Addam's...Addam, until much later when he opened the package and saw a gift tag with captioning script much neater than Addam's could ever hope to be glaring up at him.

"May you always find what you're looking for," it read. So, Flora Hentisane, the summarily ignoble denizen of Auresco's streets, was a bit of a viper, eh? God save Addam, in that case, but maybe he rather needed it. And, fair enough, the joke was on her - Minoth didn't even know what he was looking for.

Minoth knew well of Amalthus's private scorn for humanity; it would have been hard not to, because as the years went on it practically emanated off of him. He could sympathize, to a certain extent. It was frustrating to see those in power turn such blind eyes and stamped feet to all the good the common people could do, and all the suffering they endured.

But where Minoth saw some consistent spark of worth and blamed only the upper echelons of the food chain, Amalthus gradually began to show that his hatred burned for the seeds, at the tiniest budding fragment. He had been one, once, a small and insignificant peasant, and the fellow vermin had taken brutal advantage of that fact.

Minoth had never had a mother, of course. He'd never even bothered to know intimately of the concept. Babies he liked, though, both from a surface level and in a deeper, more philosophical way. The beginning of all life, the innocence and the promise of untaint. So when he ambled his way up that unexpectedly grassy hill on Coeia and saw the house looted and in bloody disarray, it wasn't until a baby's cries came echoing back to him that he was truly given a turn.

"I arrived too late."

The words from Amalthus were pitiless, devoid of the sorrow one would expect from someone in his position. Minoth wanted to trust, hadn't truly learned himself not to yet, but his Driver was holding the child like a loaf of pre-sliced bread, something not needing or deserving of the requisite pressure to hold it firm. The disconnect between the infant's swaddle and Amalthus's chemise ghosted into his mind, and something crucial came fully unhooked.

"Is that right? Was that their child?" He said "was" because if the parents are dead, well, that's half of it, but what of the newborn life...?

The crying had stopped, surely not out of comfort. Minoth's tone inched toward accusatory. "That soldier, wasn't that the one from-"

"Such a cruel world we live in."

The hook, free and flailing, rent the bond asunder. Minoth felt himself almost want to jump off the cliff to get away.

All he said, however, was a simple "Huh." It seemed suicide to say more.

"In Indol, there are a great many paintings depicting all manner of hells. But I think...real hell might be...closer to something like this."

Minoth wanted so badly to reason, to stop the decay and the rot and the minute private hell that was this conversation. "Amalthus, you can't-"

"I had hoped, once, that the Architect might...save us all..."

In one consternatingly graceless motion, Minoth stepped in front of Amalthus and placed his hands around the baby where the Indoline man hadn't bothered to hold tight. Breath, the breath of life and hope and goodness and certainly not a breath that would ever take in the asphyxiating flames of hell. Yellow eyes narrowed, but blue-skinned hands remained aloof.

Taking a deep breath of his own, Minoth drew the child close, away from his Driver.

"I hope the Architect does save you, Amalthus. I hope one day you can still believe."

Amalthus's face fell, and his eyes cast about, but the Flesh Eater was turning away. Curse that Blade's independence, the Quaestor thought. He was a mistake in more ways than one.

The solicitous Magister in question is indeed Baltrich, for any keen observers up on the Indol cast.

Minoth, looking at Addam: Damn, nice tits
Flora: i'm his girlfriend
Minoth: Oh yeah? Tell him I said nice tits
Flora: where do you want to be buried
Minoth: In them titties LMAO

You'll find more and more that this story is not half as serious as my pretentious tone and style make it seem...oops!

Please see The Ol' Switcheroo by CloverCloverClover for a far superior take on the cliff baby scene (and everything else) - I haven't linked to the specific chapter because, well, it's a big story to tackle and I think everyone should in fact do so!!

Chapter 04: I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) - "When the sun beats down and I lie on the bench, I can always hear them talk."

be not afraid of the world around you
let it wrap you up in violet folds
contrarian men, oh they do not suit you
let yourself fall in peace and surely grow old

The first time Minoth saw Malos, what caught his interest was the Aegis's walk. The swagger, the assuredness. New Blades shouldn't have that. Yes, they can walk without issue, they know the weight of their own step all too intimately, but when you've only been awakened half an hour ago, you don't really know how to walk on marble floors with your bullet-ridged boots, how to keep from scratching the sheen and slipping down steps.

What did Malos know? Probably, he knew everything, nigh preternaturally. Things Minoth couldn't hope to dream to learn in his entire blessedly cursedly way-too-long-but-not-really-long-enough promised lifetime. And he didn't know why he would - that is to say, he knew that he wanted to learn, to be knowledgeable and to keep his mind sharp, but he didn't know what drove it. Was it spite? Empty gluttony? An insistent need to convince himself of the beauty yet extant in the world?

People, real people, like...well, Addam, for one - they wanted to learn practically for the hell of it, because the world was if not beautiful then at least inspiring. To learn of the world was to be better equipped to live in companionship among and amongst its people. To look at the prince, you wouldn't think he'd had to be that kind of a sober scholar. Sure enough, he wasn't. Minoth was, in a twisted reflection thereof.

What did Malos know? Probably, he didn't know anything, not anything of the kind that it really counted to know, that it would be wrong to know preternaturally. With Amalthus looming and the sanctum gluttonously, opulently barren, Minoth considered for a moment that he might teach it to him, or try, at least. What he had learned firsthand about the world in his nine years of life had helped him to stand apart from Amalthus probably moreso than the experiment had and ever would.

If Amalthus had never cared about, let alone for, humanity, and Minoth suspected that it had been a very, very long time since he had, where had his fucked-up, cast-aside Blade gotten even the barest facsimile of caring from? The things that Malos knew, the sterile data, didn't and couldn't constitute feeling. Not a hundred independently snapping neurons or whatever the hell it was that linked Drivers and Blades could ever serve to simulate the spark of humanity without insulting it.

At least, that's what Minoth pretended to know. He was the very insult, wasn't he? And so when Malos steered that obnoxious stride straight into his personal space and looked him up and down, Core and scar and all, no connection came between them. One could make a dozen comparisons of analytical nature, but they were not physical analogy. An allegory is only an allegory. It is not real.

"I'm not like you," was all Minoth could think to blurt out.

"Heh. Of course you're not. Precious few of us are."

Who was "us"? What on this earth would the Aegis ever think of as "precious"? In a sense, it was nice that Malos had agreed, but he'd taken the tack of pride instead of nuance, and that didn't bode well for anyone, least of all this world.

"Good to see you're not pretending, though. You've crossed over to the other side, haven't you, cowboy?" Blades never would, never did. Why had he gotten to? He'd gotten to because the ticket was not gold but mica and it came flitting in dreadful origamical folds to be a snake's tongue flashing in the dark.

"Are you like him?" Minoth asked cagily, and prayed to some being a little to the left of the Architect for the elusive answer that would promise hope, real hope, in this darkness.

"I am like nothing else in this world," Malos declared with easy stygian pride. "But, pretty soon, that might not matter all that much."

How had he known the Aegis's name? He'd heard Amalthus taste it with sotted pleasure, from around a careful corner. "Malos," he'd said, perhaps repeated it back after having the information bestowed upon him by the divine instrument himself.

Bad. Bad, bad, bad. The god of their world had received unworthy prayers and had gifted them the very essence of badness in answer.

"Well," Minoth rejoined, rigging an indifferent expression up onto his face, "good for you."

Malos's reaction was no more transparent. "Yeah, okay."

Each Blade-not-a-Blade turned on the heel of his own boot, and they walked, sauntered, stiffness unbound, in opposite directions, neither towards a master but only one towards a goal. To walk towards a purpose was different to walking towards a goal, you see. At least, that's what he pretended to know.

"Minoth?" The imperious word floated down the halls of the Tornan palace. Addam glanced at his friend questioningly.

"It's him. And that new one. He's a real bag of dicks." The accompanying knitted brow was born of more than just disdain, Addam could tell, though Minoth had never told him of the encounter on Coeia.

"Like Driver, like Blade?" Minoth nodded. "More's the pity. Come on!"

The prince grabbed the Flesh Eater's hand and pulled him down one hallway, then a jerking turn to another, seemingly menial routes that one never would have thought to lead to anything important. Minoth melted, dissolved, ascended at the touch, even through his gloves, and followed mindlessly. Eventually, they reached an array of mid-size doors, and Addam chose one on the end.

"Here we are!"

It was a bedroom. A small pile of greatswords of varying length lay cluttered in the corner, and books and notes were strewn haphazardly across a mostly bare desk. On one shelf were scattered a half-dozen assorted knick-knacks, probably just a selection of myriad trivial mementos that the prince had found particularly charming.

"Is this your room?"

"Mhm. They like to think they're begrudging me, but what would I want with much more?"

Addam had retracted his hand when making their grand gesture of entry, so Minoth crossed his arms as some futile measure of self-security.

Suddenly, Addam's tone was softer, less jovial. "You're shivering." Shit. Pass it off, pass it off...

"They must be keeping the heat off for you then. Pretty petty, if you ask me."

Addam shook his head insistently. "It's not the room. Sit down." He gestured to the bed.

Rather unwillingly, Minoth sat, and Addam came down to sit beside him. His knees were splayed uncomfortably, and Addam thought it was almost like he had never sat down before, at least not anywhere comfortable. The prince, for his part, had patted down the covers as he descended onto the bed, and Minoth snaked a hand down to take one of his. To his surprise, the hand squeezed back warmly. Oh, it was brilliant. He made a noise almost like a whimper.

"Does your Core Crystal hurt?" Huh. Come to think of it, it did. His whole chest was red-hot, emanating from that central spot...or was it somewhere a bit more to the left?

Minoth grunted, and Addam reached out to touch it. In that moment suddenly, inexplicably keen to stop whatever it was that was happening to him, Minoth found his words.

"I wouldn't do that, Prince. It'll burn you."

"Oh, are you sure? I'm rather curious anyway - may I?" Well...okay. Minoth shrugged his assent.

Indeed, curious, if childish, fingers stroked reverently yet with abandon across the myriad facets - was he trying to burn off all his fingerprints at once? But, no yelp of pain came.

"It's beautiful, Minoth. Oh, curse Amalthus for what he did and all, but it's beautiful just the same."

Addam's voice became more and more wondering, and of a sudden, he leaned in and brushed his lips against the crystal. It was all Minoth could do not to crush the other man's hand in his grasp.

"My prince..." Addam shoved at his shoulder. "Call me Addam, please."

The next rejoinder was just as potent. "Addam--"

"Hmm? You're awfully worked up, maybe you should lie down."

This time, Minoth didn't protest, only made to swing his legs around, but was stopped short by the second princely hand raised out between them.

"That armor's far too bulky to be comfortable. Can I help you take it off?"

Slowly but surely, they unbuckled gauntlets, elbow guards, chest piece, boots, belts, and all. Addam began to slip fingers around the gaps under his jacket too, but Minoth put a warning hand of his own up.

"Didn't you say I was shivering?"

"I did, but I also said it wasn't because of the temperature, and you'll be under a blanket anyway," Addam answered mildly. "Come on - unless you'd rather I didn't?"

Minoth shook his head almost violently. What he wanted was for Addam to keep touching him, at least in the places he'd been doing. The prince hummed, more or less heedless anyway, and worked the sleeves back over Minoth's shoulders, drawing his arms through with steady hands. The ether deposits on his back felt twitchy and volatile, but Addam was oblivious as ever and hadn't put a hand nor eyeball back there to see.

"There. Now lie down, and I'll see if I can find you some...what was it you said you liked to eat again?"

Minoth smiled tightly, not quite a grin. "I didn't, and don't go."

"Well, alright then. I'll just sit over here-" Addam was pulled down by his elbow to flop abruptly onto the bed. "Oh."

Reaching out to take one of those wonderful hands again, Minoth turned on his side and closed his eyes into the crook of the prince's neck, breathing in and out to calm himself as best he could. The other, unoccupied hand found its way to the back of his head, exploring around the base of the ponytail and waiting for a nod to indicate that he could pull out the tie.

Addam idly ran his fingers through brown strands, working out little knots and smoothing the dent that came of keeping an elastic band nigh-constantly wrapped around one section. The heaving of Minoth's chest eased with every pass.

"Your hair's quite dashing like this. Why don't you wear it down more often?"

The fight-or-flight response was numbing away, and Minoth murmured answers, edgeless. "For one thing, it's hard enough to see around the one piece that won't stay up. And he doesn't like it. Says it's unseemly." In a sharper mood, he would have imitated the Quaestor's oily denouncement, but Addam smiled adoringly nonetheless.

"Well, I like it. And I happen to be lucky enough to know that that's good enough for you." The Flesh Eater's grin came more freely now.

Tepidly, Minoth reached back to catch the hand that was carding through his hair and used the both to pull Addam in to his chest, then wrap his forearms around the prince's shoulders. Addam was close to his height, but was much lankier and just felt small in his grasp, especially up this close.

An amused laugh came from somewhere near his chin. "And here I thought I was the one taking care of you!" No reply.

"Do you feel better now, Minoth?"

"Affirmative, Prince."

"I didn't know Amalthus could still have such an effect on you."

He felt Minoth grimace, his grip involuntarily tightening. "It's the two of them together. Nasty cocktail of a foppish snake with pathetic worldviews and an omnipotent brute all too willing to carry out their effects to the letter. They're even too dark for me, fortunately."

Addam was silent for a long moment. Again, the air stilled.

"What will become of you?" Minoth stifled any kneejerk response and buried his nose in the soft gray hair.

"Minoth." The tone was warning, and he reluctantly released the prince to move them both upright, suddenly all too aware of his bare shoulders - those of the both of them, really.

"The Lord of Aletta is near to passing on, and I've gathered that they've a mind to send me out there when he does. They'll want me to marry, too, soon enough, to avoid what they view as 'further impropriety'."

"And you've got a problem with that?"

Addam shook his head. "No, not at all. Aletta, manor though it is, is closer to the simple life I want, and I've no qualms about marrying Flora. We might even have children."

Minoth snorted, not unkindly. "And you'll be father of the year, I'm sure. So what's the problem? You feel guilty about this?" The "Because I sure as hell do, if you're gonna make a speech like that," was silent.

"Only because I know you won't come with me," came the sorrowful reply.

"Ah. That's where you're right."

"Why not, Minoth? You can't possibly be happy with him?"

Arms crossed, he looked straight ahead. "Sure I'm not. I avoid the bastard every chance I get. But a fuck-up like me doesn't belong with a prince like you."

He had expected a bit of prim-and-proper shock from the prince at the harsh word, but instead was handed it right back.

"And I'm not a fuck-up too? This isn't the prince and the pauper, we're both outcasts. Let me steal you away."

Minoth leaned forward to rest his chin on his fist, eyebrows raised and gears whirring. "Oh, look who's the playwright! Needs a little embellishment, but that's good. Add in something about the prince's heart being stolen. Makes for an interesting exchange there, some drama."

"Oh, Minoth..." The hand was back on his Core Crystal, which no longer burned inside or out, thumbing around the setting and trying but failing to ministrate at the inorganic thing.

He glanced over. "You gonna kiss me again, Prince?"

Addam smiled bitterly. "Why, do you want me to?" Before Minoth could respond, he finished the thought.

"That's not an embellishment, you know."

Minoth considered this last. Couldn't take it at face value, not him. "And what about Flora?"

"Flora? She's wonderful. Heals me in ways I never imagined a girl could. She's a primary school teacher. I love her." The words came simply, and the contrast was blatant.

"That's not what I meant, Addam." "Oh?" "But, then, your glorious prince's heart's too big to be stolen by any one person, now isn't it," Minoth concluded, laughing.

"Indeed! It'd take at least three, probably, I'd say." As he did indeed say it, he thrust his arm out to wrap around Minoth's shoulders with none of the trepidation that the Flesh Eater would have expected, or perhaps wanted. "Don't deny to yourself that one of them is you."

The ether deposits flared. "I make no promises." Luckily, Addam was distracted by the blue light.

"Oh, are these part of your body? I'd never known. They look rather important." He shuffled awkwardly backwards and sideways to get a better view, almost kicking Minoth in the side as he did so.

"Can I touch them?" Minoth barked a laugh. "If you're that determined to be handsy, I won't stop you."

Again, the grazing touch was electric, and Minoth suppressed a moan. His automatic shuddering was caught by strong hands on his shoulders as soft lips caressed the folds of yet leather-covered skin around the circles and underneath the shoulder blades upon which they were located.

Addam was apparently waiting until the stimulation became too much, because just as it did he moved his arms to loop around the Flesh Eater's chest and pressed his own chest against Minoth's back.

"I don't want to be yet another fear of yours. You've far more than you deserve already." His head decided to look over Minoth's left shoulder, exploring possible options such as kissing his neck, his jaw, his scar...

The fierce blue eyes caught his golden ones and searched.

"Do you love me, Minoth?" He tried to ask it as harmlessly, conversationally as possible, despite the nerves.

A rough hand grasped his arm and guided their lips together for a long moment. After it was over, Addam leaned into the crook of Minoth's neck, and out of the corner of his eye caught the edge of the Flesh Eater smiling his most disarming - his most comfortable.

"You never were very observant, were you, Prince?"

Recommendation alert! This time it's from the lovely yoshizora.

Does it count as slow burn if they've already kissed? I think you'll agree eventually that it does.

This chapter is basically what I like to call "confirming my bias" :).

Chapter 05: Turn It On Again - "Can I meet you on another day, and we will fly away?"

sing what the people say
cry when the children play
who is your home and kind
what's it like inside your mind?

All of Addam's thoughts about respect and agency and trust flew right off the Titan's back when it came time for the "bag of dicks"'s partner Aegis to be awakened. Amalthus, smooth operator that he was, had somehow let loose a scourge upon the world, and now looked for someone else to right what he had set wrong.

The Urayans were as aloof as ever, and Mor Ardain was famously full up on leaders' resonances. Leftheria was a salvager's haven and not much more, and Gormott didn't have much of any people in, or rather on, it, since most of the original inhabitants, such as Addam's pseudo-page Milton, had experienced war-adjacent events that had driven them off the Titan. Where else to look? But of course, Torna.

The news left Addam more bemused than anything, since the fourth in line to the throne wouldn't be getting anywhere near that crucifixial emerald crystal, certainly. His father passed the reins almost immediately, and the look in Zettar's eyes was hungry as they gathered in the conference room, Amalthus and the king and Zettar and Zettar's half-siblings (the king's step-siblings, thus): a man named Chaghan and a woman named Ashigu...and Addam.

He had left Flora at home in Aletta, though it was more simply just at house, after they had laughed their way through all of Zettar's possible reactions and then considered his motivations for a moment - but only a moment! Zettar had incensed even at his very appearance, knowing from whence he had come and begrudging it. But surely, what was his problem? He, Zettar, was there in the palace, not being cast out like an old shirt nobody wanted. One would have thought Addam had done something offensive so as to deserve such treatment, instead of simply trying his best to please people, and in a genuine way, mind you.

The Core stood alone at the end of the table bare of a runner, balanced on its own short end. It looked to carry a great inner robustness, but at the same time teetered dangerously without support. Addam had seen Malos, peeks out of the corner of eye and around the same of hall, and imagined that a green-and-gold version of the very same body of power would spring forth from this crystal. It stood to reason, after all - Amalthus matched Malos in no portent, so the designated appearance must have come from on high, and not from first Driver's influence.

He knew not who had named the entity "Malos" - it meant "bad" in the root words of practically all of Alrest's folk languages. It didn't seem like Amalthus to name something, certainly not a self-proclaimed or perhaps -professed "divine revelation", so bluntly, so uncreatively, in a way so devilishly and flatly uninspired, but then, the name recalled his own, so perhaps it was just a bitter coincidence. This world seemed to be full of those.

Addam peered bleakly at a dark curve in the tastefully ornate mahogany leg of the table and thought about what little useless trinket he could bring home to amuse Flora. She'd laugh and tweak his nose and ask him where he'd gotten the fool idea to pick up such a thing? And he'd recall a joke they'd told each other some few years ago, and she'd laugh again and kiss his silly cheeks and they would be dear companions, nothing more complicated than that--

Zettar yanked his hand back with a hiss, like he'd been burned. Addam absently wondered whether he hadn't the aptitude in general or whether this was just special Aegis business. No matter, still two more perfectly suitable and better qualified potential Drivers to go before they got anywhere close to even thinking about him. Maybe he'd splurge and get her a fancy perfume, because she liked those so much, privately, and wouldn't that be an even funnier lark, because he was certainly not the image of the doting husband...!

Chaghan paled as he watched his prideful younger brother face rejection at the whims of a divine instrument, and waved gloved hands with a pitiful, frenzied shake of his head. Why wasn't Amalthus volunteering to do this, anyway? Humility, perhaps? If one Brighid plus one Aegaeon equaled a great team under the same Driver, then maybe one purple Aegis plus one green Aegis equaled the destruction of a continent, if not the world. Funny how that worked. Scary how that worked.

Oh, but there was Ashigu, turning up her nose and pretending affection and esteem for Zettar since if it hadn't accepted him, surely it wouldn't her, and the exercise wouldn't even be worth her time, let alone theirs. Certainly not! Eyes yellow and blue alike swiveled to train on Addam, and he suddenly felt as if he should have been watching much more closely.

"Er...can I do something for you?"

His father scowled and gave a minute curse to a spot on the table somwhere down and to the left of his chin. Zettar smiled malovently, slime reeking from his mouth that looked like it held a slender, slippery fish between the moist lips. Chaghan recovered some of his tittering confidence, and Ashigu looked on Addam with something almost like pity. Only Amalthus carried an emotion he couldn't quite place.

"Go ahead, Addam," he said with a warmth that was emptily cold. "Why don't you try your hand at awakening the Aegis? I'm sure you could do no worse a job than I have already."

His voice was like polished granite, buffed to a smoothness that was unnatural and just shouldn't be. But why begrudge people their god-given voices? He was just trying to fix his mistake, and goodness knew he could stand to keep going with that.

So, Addam went ahead. Just the aptitude test was all they were there for, as there would be a formal ceremony in Olethro Stadia (for whose benefit he had no clue) once the Driver had been decided upon. He was wearing gloves, of a medium thickness and creased less with wear than with newness. Aletta was still as yet not quite settled, so he wore light armor from day to day, more and more functional, less ceremonial, than that of either Zettar or his father or anyone who inhabited Aureus, save the guards.

The crystal pulsed warm and fierce under even the approach of Addam's hand, and it was with a violent crash that his mind began the processing of who, what, where, when, why, how, this was a Blade and - Titan's foot! - he was about to be bound to awaken it! What were good things in this world? What were innocent and pure and possessing of no malice, not possibly? He couldn't very well hope to capture a destructive god's Aegis in the confines of a child's frame, but he could at least try to believe in a potential of benevolence.

When he and Flora talked about trying to have a child, neither were particularly partial to one gender or the other (at least, to Addam's knowledge, and Flora was always quick to remind him that Milton didn't count), but now that this absolute charge was being presented to him, he suddenly wished valiantly for a girl. Indeed, what a smashing affair it would have been if so determinable, the gestational reveal of the Aegis! Ha! No impending injuries, he rather hoped. He wasn't being struck down where he stood right now, at least.

"Ah," said Amalthus, and then Addam too became party to the ring of gazes that were once more upon him as his hand hovered, nervously twitching, over the emerald crystal, his eyes swimming in thought.

"My congratulations, Addam," came that damned perennially neutral-tempered cadence. "It seems divine will has smiled on you today - on us all. You have been gifted the dread duty of becoming the Driver of the Aegis, and stopping the destruction incumbent upon this world. I'm sure you'll make us all proud."

He said it as if Malos's awakening was in no part his doing, like it was inevitable and merely part of the passage of fate. Was he not trying to pay his penance, then...? Out of the corner of his eye, Addam saw Ashigu pull Chaghan behind her through the threshold, and Amalthus bow curiously unstiffly to his father. A harrowing presence came behind him, and his ear was beset by hot, stale breath.

"Aegis or not, you're still a bastard. Don't forget it, Addam," Zettar sneered lowly, and wheeled out of the room.

Addam heaved himself into an empty chair, making no acknowledgement of the king's steady gaze on his forehead. Would they call you a bastard, he thought at the crystal, because you weren't awakened by a true pilgrim of the holy land? Would they call you lesser? Would they hate you despite your best efforts? Would they not give you a chance?

I am afraid of you - the words came unbidden to the front of his mind, and he tried more strongly to direct them into the very center of the crystal - but I will try to do right by you. Is the engenderer of new life not always afraid of, or perhaps for, what they have begotten?

"You can hold my hand without needing a grand overarching motive, you know, or any at all, really. Just because we got married for reasons of state doesn't mean I don't love you - like you, even."

"What, are we children, Flora?" They probably looked like it, strolling on the sprawling moor this fine, if unauspicious, almost-overcast afternoon after Addam had momentarily returned home.

She laughed softly. "No, but I think I would have liked to have known you then. To see what silly little boy grew into this silly big man."

"I'm not that tall, Flora," he protested, trying to keep jovial despite the mood that threatened to turn against him.

"You are so! If only because I'm tiny next to you." Indeed, only the scantest half-inches made it less than a foot that separated their crowns. "Well, I-"

"And don't you bring up that Minoth! I don't care if he's ten feet tall, he's a clod and we don't need to think about him."

And yet it was she who had brought him up! "If you insist, Flora."

"That I do, Addam," she preened, victorious. Rather like a princess, indeed, she was, even if he was not much of a prince.

She proceeded to babble about this or that (it was almost unlike her, in fact, the uncannily determined vociferousness with which she prattled on): look at the Tirkins watching their vegetable patch, I think we should plant the Tawny Carrots soon because the weather's right and they take so long to grow and then we won't need to buy new seeds after the tops are cut, and thank you for the new earrings, I think they're darling even if they're a little bimboish...and Addam just stared at his shoes, absurd pointy-toed things that always clacked uncomfortably on the stone of their compound.

He was still looking in the general down direction when something minutely moving broached his peripheral vision. "Flora...your hands are shaking."

Her chin twitched a tiny, snappish demi-hemi-semi-rotation and its reversal. "So? It's cold out here."

"Flora, it is not cold, and you never get cold anyway, you're practically indifferent to temperature." Not that it was hard to be, when raised in one and living in another of the temperate regions of a generally agreeably summery Titan.

"I said, it's cold out here! If you had been holding my hands then they wouldn't be cold, now would they?"

Ah. So this was what he was to be up against now. "Oh, no you don't. Don't try to logic your way out of this one, Miss Hentisane."

"Origo," she corrected sharply. "Mrs. Origo."

Her blue eyes had flashed a tinge of red, and he responded in kind with a sheepish look. "Oh, that's...that's right, isn't it."

Flora crossed her arms and huffed. "Well you can smile about it, you know! It's certainly not a bad thing."

"Certainly not," Addam murmured to himself as he gazed without focus across the moor. The Armus were huddled together despite the lack of chill, and the Rapchors skittered aimlessly. Perhaps they were right to teem and turmoil, in light of his impending mission.

And yet, he wasn't necessarily resentful of the responsibility as simply that: something to do, to take care of. He hadn't had much direction before this, and his moderate discomfort with being a husband and homeowner and whatever humdrum else newfound welcomed a distraction. His wife, however, was none so content.

"Of all the people they could send on a world-ending chase, why did it have to be you? We were just...we were just going to be happy."

"Flora, it's not that serious." Damn it all, he felt terribly conflicted. Was he lying? He hated to lie, and he hated more how ever-increasingly easy it became the older he got.

"It's not? He could sink an entire Architect-damned continent, Addam, of course it's serious. Of course it's...of course--"

Of a sudden, Flora it's-cold-out-here Origo threw herself, desperately clutching arms and all, at Addam's chest, and having found purchase shook mightily against him.

"Flora, darling, what's so funny?" She didn't answer, and he could only puzzle on what the joke might have been.

"Flora?" Still there was no response, only more shaking, and gradually he began to feel the dampness of tears through his shirt. "Flora, are you crying?"

"Of course I'm crying, you absolute idiot!" This was how Addam had to know that it was serious. No "silly goose", no "tomfool clod", no benign, even childish insult that was just playful enough to work on literal children when she was teaching. Still, he didn't offer a reply, only smoothed his hands over her back. His chest ached where the tears had stained.

"You can't possibly tell me you're not scared." It was convenient for Flora that her words were muffled, so that once again the obvious practical effect and excuse could beget sidestepping of the actual emotions at hand.

"I suppose I just try not to think about it." Again, Addam stared with bleared eyes, this time at the lazily looping Quadwings. They shouldn't be out now, should they? Odd.

"Doesn't your father care?" And wasn't he just about as majestic as the very owlish eagles, then. He had endless magnanimous gravity and gravitas, but did he care, truly care...?

"No, I don't...I don't really think so. Ever since my mother died all those years ago, I think he's struggled to see me as anything more than a burden, as much as he may want to think otherwise."

Flora turned her head to the side - always the both of them looking anywhere but at each other. "It bothers me that I'm this worried about it, too... Shouldn't a girl - a young woman, even - of my age have anything better to stew about than the health and well-being of a man, of all things?"

More a boy, of all things - and yet was he just a man, some bone-headed muscle-minded bundle of limbs to her? Oh, but he still didn't know whether he actually objected if that was indeed how it was.

"Don't let it bother you so, Flora - we are married, after all," he offered feebly at last (well, the phrase turned itself out well enough, so perhaps a mind for rhetoric he had after all).

"Oh, so now you remember." A curse on his head for ever forgetting, truly - it was just stupidity to have done so in general, anyway.

He held her away from him, and made to brush the hair out of her eyes, only of course there wasn't any in the way, because her perfection of such points and all those similar never failed. A palm laid to cheek would lamely compromise. "Flora, I-- I love you, you know."

She matched his gesture. "Oh, Addam...yes, I do know. For all my crowing about it, you're still very sweet to say so."

"Come on, let's go inside. It's cold out here." And even if he was lying, he stowed his gloves and held her hands close and warm all the way back.

It has always been my impression that Torna (the kingdom) is based on Mongolia! There's:

- the architecture in Auresco
- the desert + grassland biomes
- the culturally significant sand gardens
- the king's Genghis-Khan-adjacent design (independent of the Xenogears reference, I know)
- the people dressed in a rather nomadic style with the children wearing various styles of hats
- it being closer to the feeling of being landlocked than any other Titan, at least in my opinion
- the dread history that eventually led to semi-isolationism (sealing the Titan's Core) and real isolationism (Tantal)

...etc. So that's where Zettar's siblings' names originated from, though slightly bastardized/fantasized, of course - feel free to try your hand at figuring out their sources/meanings!

Chapter 06: A Trick of the Tail - "There, beyond the bounds of your weak imagination, lie the noble towers of my city, bright and gold."

My personal poetry is a failure.
I do not want to be a person.
I want to be unbearable.
Lover to lover, the greenness of love.
Cool, cooling.

Earth bears no such plant.

-- Anne Carson, "Stanzas, Sexes, Seductions"

And so, the ceremony in Uraya...practically no one was there. The current queen of that Titan was present, attended by a veritable blockade of guards because even the most arresting curiosity about the Aegis's power was well tempered by caution. Mor Ardain sent a man under the title of Special Inquisitor, and he was foreboding even in ridiculously tall helmet. No Hugo, no Brighid or Aegaeon, no allies therefrom.

Amalthus, of all people, was nowhere to be seen, but there was a lesser Magister by the name of Baltrich in an Indoline delegate's place. He looked on Addam interestedly, seeming neither benign nor malicious, merely observing. The aura was Amalthus-adjacent, but only adjacent.

Rounding out the audience were monarchs from Spessia and Coeia, markedly less regal in their armaments but nonetheless bitterly invested in the proceedings, perhaps more than most attending, because their Titans were small and easy targets. The Tornan king had not deigned to travel with Addam, and whether that was more out of a slightly apathetic fear or a desire to see his son stand on his own, none could say. Zettar and his siblings had seen the prince off with sickly, simpering snickers, and more likely than not they were counting on his being disintegrated by the nascent Aegis's power anyway, regardless of aptitude heretofore displayed.

Addam was breathlessly rejecting of that same aptitude; the closer the event had loomed, the less he'd wanted to attend. He'd mentioned this to Flora in the distant aftermath of their needling spat on the moor, the possibility of simply...not going, and she'd flicked his braid and said that of course she didn't want him to go, but wouldn't he and the Aegis make such a wonderful team, I'm sure, and no one else could be trusted to get the damn thing over with anyway. She was right, to a certain extent, in that power-hungriness lurked smallest in his mind of very well anyone on Alrest, but perhaps you needed that to wield the Aegis.

Well, but he didn't want to, damn it! He just bloody well didn't want to. But at the same time, he felt from his very bones that he needed to take this chance at responsibility and, quite honestly, prove Zettar and his cackling horde wrong. He wasn't petulant, nor even gravely reticent as he was with regard to the prospect of ruling a nation, just...afraid.

His forearm felt woefully naked without the barrier of dovetailed armor plates atop it, since he had had to strip off the whole section in order to get his hand free. No one stood by to take the superfluous vestments, so his left hand hung there just as gracelessly, clutching unworn but yet familiar pieces of gold-plated pewter laced by and in a clattering string that made up the erstwhile vambrace. At least it hadn't been his left arm that had needed disrobing.

Olethro was precious quiet, even empty. No one was standing in wait to announce him - Prince Addam Origo, lone son of noble Khanoro and fourth in line to the Throne of the Dragon's Land, Lord of Aletta and champion of the people. Why should they be? Or rather, why shouldn't they be? Who were they rejecting more strongly, him or the Aegis? Never mind that he was beloved back in his own land.

Baltrich stepped forward with the pouch containing the emerald crystal then, his set expression one of aloofness but some peculiar mix of calculation and understanding lurking beneath. Once more straying to the topic, Addam thought that this Magister, if he ever needed to be, would be an ally far superior to whatever Amalthus could provide, even if they were similar in ambitions and even competitive at times. A shame Indoline A had come out on top over Indoline B, but nothing to be done about it now.

Again, if only Hugo were here, he could rest a little easier knowing that someone, anyone was in his corner. The Aegis himself, yet unawakened, could not be counted on to be an ally - Addam had dreaded and wrestled with the thought, whether he should shrink in fear of the awesome power or try to encourage it in companionable stride. It was impossible to know or even guess at until it had been done with, he supposed.

There was a crack in the tile that lay between him and Baltrich, worn deep and depressed long - why hadn't anyone bothered to fix it? A simple application of grout and a little elbow grease - or knee creaks, rather - would do just fine. Why, indeed? Everywhere he turned, Addam felt his outlook become more and more singular. But was he really a paragon among men to feel compelled to do a simple and obvious chore that no one else had cared to do? Certainly not.

What did it all mean? Oh, as redundant ever, no time for that now. Baltrich didn't lay a finger on the crystal, instead producing it from the pouch with only the exact measure of grace required to pull back the velvet folds by corded drawstring, and no more. Addam reached out for it, wishing desperately for the security of his gloves, even as unfamiliar as they themselves were. His fingers shook mightily before closing in around the crystal - it was always much smaller than imagination preserved it as, though he'd only touched it once before.

Feeling a sudden burst of impetus, Addam grasped the Core Crystal with impunity. He had expected it to be like clutching a brass ring, like reaching for something long-held and terribly dear, but for several long moments, nothing happened. He almost wanted to tap gently at the anterior face - hello, anybody home? The Aegis was just as reluctant as him, he realized after what felt like the seventeenth minute of standing there in silent suspense. And then, before he could think another single wit, the Aegis awoke.

It was such a strong, heady feeling, almost like the anaphylactic reaction he experienced any time he came anywhere close to a patch of Prism Poppies. This was leaning more towards the hypnotic effect than anything sharply chemical, however. Golden light filled his chest and forced him to take deep, heaving breaths. It was almost like a healing, protective power, but it was so aggressive that it very nearly made him double over in a coughing fit. No healer Blade, not even the Aegis, would do that, Addam was sure.

The longer the clear, miasmic aura lingered on, the more Addam wondered if he was being tested, searched, cased. And if so, was the process more analytical or emotional? Did the Aegis have emotions? Did this divine instrument feel? It wasn't a huge leap of logic to posit that perhaps they (it? he?), as the Architect's first forged creations, were yet another level removed from human. But then, one must only wonder, could something not human look like this?

She stood before him breathtaking, angelic, features and stature delicate but posture and armor admirably strong - and not at all as foreboding as Malos had been, in the few glimpses Addam had caught. She looked young, he realized, younger than him and certainly younger than Malos. Her arms were arranged such that she made the silhouette of an A, vaguely reminiscent of her Core's shape but much more relaxed and natural. Golden eyes fluttered, opened, worked, focused. The arms dropped in quiet, exacting sync.

Then, borne upon the wondrous but oh so onerous silvered platter milieu of a horrified whisper, his first words to the legendary Aegis: "Is that really what you're wearing?"

She glared just as horrifiedly back before spinning in an inelegant circle on her wing-footed heel to conjure a pair of sleek black leggings and a much more...polite chemise. "Happy now?"

Her first words to him, and to the world, it seemed. Addam tried to summon a smile himself, but the munificent gesture eluded him. In pathetic lieu, he could make only a feeble, stuttering nod.

"O Aegis," Baltrich began, because apparently he was the de facto master of ceremonies in Amalthus's de jure absence, and welcome him to it because they seemed to share the same sense of and gift for oration, "we are humbled by the grace of your presence. Before you is your Driver, and we the attending comprise envoys from all the nations of Alrest. We have called you to us as we stand in fear of another of the Architect your father's revelations. Will you help us?"

Her blink was slow and measured, though the eyes wobbled, her ears flattening back in an imperceptible gesture that Addam was sure no one else in the stadium had caught, or had cared to. Eventually, she spoke, louder than her quick quip from before, but addressing herself to Addam and ignoring Baltrich's question.

"What is your name?" She hadn't asked for the name of "my Driver" or "this man" and yet Addam didn't waste a second bumbling about with soft emissions of "Me?" or "My name?"

"My name is Addam Origo." Perhaps the last name wasn't necessary. "But please, what is your name?" This was the all-important question, Addam knew, to find out if what made Malos such a self-fulfilled prophecy of malaisial augur was truly predetermined. Already, she was not like him. How many steps further could they go? Or, then again, was it wise to? Too many horrible, horrible decisions already.

"My name...is Mythra," she pronounced unsteadily.

"Mythra," Addam repeated, inflecting it back to her with half reverence, half pride, half fear. Consideration, consideration, back and forth, forth and back. "It's a lovely name," was all he said aloud.

Mythra blushed, and her eyes bore into his for lack of anywhere else to go, but Baltrich soon dryly interrupted their incipient moment. "Where is your weapon, Aegis? With what sword will you strike down your counterpart?"

Twin looks of bewilderment decorated Blade and Driver's faces. "My...weapon?"

"Indeed." The Magister should have been daunted by the resistance, but he wasn't. Addam thought that perhaps Amalthus would have been. Point for the lesser rank, then. "I need not explain to you that as a Blade your weapon is the most crucial extension of your own self. Will you not lend it to us, lend us your power and formidable might?"

If Addam didn't know better, he'd think that Baltrich was having fun with them, because the diatribe was laughable as much as it was painful. Well, Flora would have laughed at it, anyway, if she'd been there. He was dressed much more formally, less practically, than Amalthus ever had at any run-of-the-mill summit, yet Addam had a hard time believing the sincerity of his words. Were the Indoline all liars? No, it couldn't be. He must be imagining it.

While Addam had been woolgathering, Mythra had obediently, if a little defiantly, materialized her weapon, an enormous pointed thing with blunt edges and white-gold coloring to match her outfit and, indeed, her self.

"What should I do now?" she asked him in a low whisper. He was gratified by the trust, and even further gratified by his own ability to come up with a quick answer. "Strike my shoulders with it, one on each, and then my head."

Mythra nearly jumped back in her shock. "You want me to hit you?" Addam smiled, just a touch, despite himself. "No, no, like dubbing a knight, you know." Or wait - did she know?

"Oh, oh yeah...yeah, I do know." Had she read his mind? No, she was simply answering his half-questioning remark. He wouldn't doubt her the gift of prescience, though. Schooling himself quickly into the requisite actions, Addam knelt before the Aegis, thankful for the armor on his knees against the cold stone and that selfsame gaping crack.

The taps came in varying strength, each one informing the next such that it was too much, too little, and then just right. Just as no one had said anything before her awakening, so no one said anything after. Baltrich observed the makeshift knighting with mute blandness, and before turning away to leave offered Addam the empty velvet pouch, as if he should keep in mind that he might need it. It was, quite frankly, a disgusting thought.

"Well," Addam said over-cheerily when the dust, of which there was none, had settled. "Where are we off to now?"

Mythra crossed her arms nervously. "You're asking me?"

"Oh, well...no, you're right. I say we go to Indol now."

"Indol?" She gave the syllables stresses that though not technically correct sounded very apropos. "What's there?"

"The man who awoke the other Aegis," Addam replied simply. "Quaestor Amalthus."

Mythra didn't taste that name as well at this juncture, but Addam found himself almost eager to hear how disdainfully she'd twist it. Now that the awakening process had done, he rather wished that they would get along, after all. It seemed a toss-up whether they would or not, anyway. They walked quickly to catch up to Baltrich's transport, and sat in silence for the day's flight there.

Amalthus's leer was just as he had remembered: blank and smooth, like his skin where not covered by those off-putting sculpted shapes of white hair.

"So you came," he opened, "the future king of Torna. I'm glad I thought to send a messenger." At the last phrase, Addam did remember that yes, there had been that little slip he'd stuffed away in some pocket or other, none too eager to read it in his apprehensious unanticipation of the event they'd just lived through.

Outwardly, he was earnest and solemn. "King? Don't joke about it. Rumors like that could cause trouble at home." Some home, but the phrase turned itself out nicely enough.

"I am merely a Quaestor," Amalthus deflected. "I hold no such influence."

Addam turned out another pat phrase then, one he knew to hold all too true: "A Quaestor today, but tomorrow?" The man in question held his stare for just two brief seconds before turning his eyes to Mythra.

"The Core's color is different," he offered uselessly. "And she's a woman, too."

Mythra grimaced and cast her gaze at the floor; Addam sympathized but had been all too quickly cast out of the picture himself.

"Quite lovely, indeed," Amalthus continued, spreading arms wide in an infuriating gesture. "Malos was all brawn and brutish strength." And he still is, Addam thought darkly, but of course you don't seem to trouble yourself with that fact.

"You worried?" Mythra's quick cut back made Addam equally proud and equally embarrassed. Already, he was seeing that his abhorrently futile, even foolish, precedent thought, that of painting the Aegis with a child's innocent toy brush, was coming to fruition in a strange and hopefully not stunted manner, if it could flourish in their favor, and specifically hers.

"Of course not. Everybody knows a Blade's appearance bears no relation to their power." Amalthus prepared himself for that same motion that was so blithely indicative of nothing. "You could be the heroine of our resistance."

Ever quick to cross her arms and scowl away, Mythra parried his sentiment. "No, I won't be anyone's anything." And good for you, Addam thought, but you will help, won't you?

"That's fine, now." For once, Addam found himself and the Quaestor in agreement. "I have only one thing to ask of you...to rectify the mistake I made."

Those words were what Addam had been waiting to hear, the redemptive promise that staved off further storms of politics. "And that means?" he couldn't help himself from prompting.

"To erase Malos...from the face of the world."

Amalthus's lips curled upwards then, like he was relieved to have finally said it. It was a good thing, wasn't it? They could all do with being a little less stiff about the whole ordeal.

My philosophy is this: yes, Mythra can have a little crush on Addam, but not as a treat. I've tried to acquaint myself with the perspective of people who ship them so that I can feel less small-minded but, not at all unfortunately, it hasn't worked, because I do strongly feel that that's borderline incestuous. Without going so far as to say "people who ship that get the fuck off my Ao3 page" I'll just note that I hold that idea in no high regard.

Could have sworn I linked this work previously, or at least something else from its author, but here it is!

We'll be entering into a little bit of canon retread territory here, but that's to be expected, of course. Hope you'll still enjoy!

Chapter 07: That's All - "I could say day, and you'd say night, tell me it's black, when I know that it's white!"

Clever assumptions do not surmount erratic behavior,
the enslavement of the dialect in nature;
the all-encompassing assimilation...

-- Styn Van Meenen, "Preach"

They left Indol in much the same way as they had come: sterling unceremoniously and for the most part in mutual silence. Therefore, Addam tried to recall and reconcile the quietude. Ah, yes. Of course. It was Minoth who he'd met in somewhat of a similar fashion. The Dark Blade had been tight-lipped and guilt-ridden, but even the earliest glimmer of his true personality shining through had been immensely gladdening. A shame that relationship was lost to time and age, now...

Right. Mythra. She, as perhaps befit a being of light contrasting a being of dark, radiated something much younger and more uncertain than he ever had, whether before opening up or after. But then, would she ever? Addam was getting ahead of himself, of course. She was hardly a week- no, not even much more than a full day old. Only time would tell, and this prince was nothing if not patient. Just antsy, he would get, and that would have to be okay.

At Aletta, he awkwardly invited her in, but she studied him for a moment, cocking head to one side, then the other, arms hugged to her like a shield (he'd yet to see her ether shields but it was probably much of the same idea), and then shook it negation completely. So, in he went, as alone as he'd been when he'd left. Flora looked on him with wondering eyes, more shy about this than she'd ever been about much of anything.

"How was it?"

At first, Addam thought she was referring to Mythra, as yet in his wife's knowledge still an it or a he or a they, and he started bluntly, "She."

Then again, he'd so promptly assumed feminine pronouns from the height and the hair, but after all who knew? Her objection to Amalthus, anyone's objection to Amalthus, was like as anything to be a blanket statement to cover all bases of discomfort or even disgust.

"She," Flora echoed back to him, because if he was unsure, he had in fact said it aloud (and well he should have, because a Driver should stand up for their Blade and be attentive to their needs). "How is she, then?"

"She's outside." A tentative smile from the classically impertinent Mrs. Origo. "I gathered as much."

"Milton," Addam said then, as if he'd been asked a question, but he was staring unfocused at a point behind her head.

"You'll take him with you?"

"I think so, yes. It'll be good for him to get out again." And good for me, of course, to have a buffer. Stop it, stop it, Addam, don't let your fear run you up so fast, you've only just begun, but perhaps it was already too late.

Milton and Mythra were thus alike as well, then, weren't they: both orphaned of a sort, both taken into care and custody after such a brief meeting and exchange of trust, both bristly because of the traumas that had so arbitrarily been inflicted or even thrust upon them...no, none of this made any sense at all. Did Mythra have traumas? Wasn't the very act of being born a starkest trauma? Was being born into his care the greatest magnitude of it? Of a sudden, Addam was thinking about Minoth again, but only to mentally reinstate the ever clever and oh so craftily wise Flesh Eater's oft-admonished warning to "Quit monologuing and wise up."

He needed someone like that around to keep him straight. Flora did so in wonderful measure, even as he murmured a quiet "I love you" and slipped out the door just as lostly as he'd come. She rapped softly on the door in parting, because they had always thought it funny that no one ever knocked goodbye, right? Why not, because it was somewhat of a silly gesture either way, imparting of so much less information than just calling out to announce yourself was.

When Milton got wrapped up in Tirkin talk, not the loudest Titan ship could rouse him towards effusive greeting, but then once he'd been put on the very same welcoming actions, nothing could peel him away.

"Master Addam! You're back!"

Right, of course he was, and Milton's arms flinging gleefully around his middle only confirmed that fact, despite the bittersweet tinge of reminder (or was it passing thought? always with the Architect-damned passing thoughts) that they'd never have quite this innocent of a moment again.

"Who's that?" Milton asked nervously as he pulled back; he'd caught sight, and that was the first irreparable mar. Mythra looked just as nervous, and when Addam motioned for her to introduce herself, she gave a trembling shake of her head. First count of stepping in, if he hadn't done so already on Uraya or Indol, however inadvertently.

"This is Mythra, Milton. And, ah, Mythra, this is Milton." His skills for oratory were lacking, it appeared. What a pitifully composed couple of sentences. Minoth would chide him endlessly, if he had known. If he was even around anymore, to know.

"Hi"s and "Hey"s were hesitantly exchanged. Milton may have looked ever so slightly awed, even awestruck, and Mythra more of the same, but that only lasted until she rolled her shoulders once around and dropped a too-cool "So. You're pretty twerpy, aren't you."

"Hey, you better watch it, lady! I'm plenty strong - and smart, too!"

"Oh? You know two plus two? Big shakes," she said, popping the B.

In one sense, Addam was proud of the way her arms crossed in self-possession, as opposed to the huffiness that Milton now displayed, but had it really needed to come at the expense of the first bud of their potential friendship?

"Master Addam, what does that mean?" Titan's foot, he couldn't imagine having to answer that question offhand at a less pat moment, and under the ennui of something far ruder.

"It means, Milton, that we've got a long journey ahead of us."

Long it came and long it went, days and weeks and months stretching on as they settled into the awkward and anxtifying routine of following the trail of the Dark Aegis's destruction and trying to triage, perhaps strike, where possible. They foraged, and Milton knew how, but none of them really knew how to cook, and whatever pretension of mathematical prowess Mythra had had, or had been merely attempting to flex on a surface level, served her none when it came to frying up Tornan Trout or stewing down Feris Beastmeat. It was rather a mystery why, but Addam suspected it had to do with a lack of patience; cooking required focus and fortitude to bring off the perfect savory meal in tasty style - even admirable simplicity, if not base heartiness.

They became especially strapped for methods when making the rounds of other Titans, and thus where Addam's mind for local cuisine bottomed out. Oh, but the other two made veritably collegiate tries of Mythra's deserving efforts, to be sure, particularly as Addam began to realize that she drew and channeled the very most and best of her stuttering sapling of a string of confidence from his approval. When she didn't get it, she quickly made a habit of mouthing off like she'd never been looking for it in the first place, so he tried to train himself to remember what was effective, as a dual operative of keeping the peace and building up her self-esteem.

Not that he lied, or was ever truly disingenuous, but...damn it all, he cared, and he wanted so badly to make good on his promise of doing right by her, whether she'd actually heard it and taken it to heart (or Core, rather - did Aegises perhaps have both?) or not. Quite possibly, this goal only drove the stake deeper in the ground between them. No one had ever grouted up that tile, as he'd made a point to check on one trip to Uraya, and if what does not bend only breaks, then what is not mended only tears, cracks, falls to ruin.

Near about a full year on, Malos had indeed sunk an entire Architect-damned continent, and it only intensified the stress of their mission. Of all things, it was that that reminded Addam most strongly and immediately that Mythra was not just an Aegis, and then not just a Blade, but his Blade, and he was her Driver. It meant far more than acting her surrogate father, of course. What threw a wrench there was that it hadn't ever been important to do the whole ether-channeling thing, because Malos could plainly move about and wreck around without the slightest single wit of input from Amalthus. Architect, what an example for her to follow.

Addam fought with a greatsword, one that he'd rather reluctantly slung across his back for the first real time since his pitiful solo sparring in a back room of the palace barracks (it was all he could muster once Hugo had been fully promoted but while he himself still hadn't yet been). Mythra didn't fight under him in the least, and so that was gratifying. Well, as gratifying as anything, any partnership, could be that ended in his being abruptly deemed a dumbass at the tail end of any battle that even remotely resembled a retreat. Had they ever sat and simply formed a bond? Not a chance, not a chance in the world. Why would they?

Well, only once, as an experiment some time in the second month, because neither of them had thought of it at any point before then. Milton was off a ways wiggling his fingers at some fish in a stream, lonely out of his mind for the lack of a friend that the children in his village or even Flora, fairly fun-loving as she was, had made to be.

"So, Mythra." "Yeah?" "You're my Blade, and all that." And all that. I'm your Driver, perhaps he should have said. Oh, what a dearly prized gift to her, it must be - not. "Yeah. So?" The phrases were cyclical in their exchange, though the nature of the question shouldn't have made it so at all, by rights.

"Aren't we supposed to...channel ether back and forth?" Oh. Maybe cyclical after all.

See, nobody had ever asked him if he was actually ready to become a Driver in the literal sense. It wasn't as if Torna was so complacent as to be completely ignorant of those, ah, petty details that made a Blade a Blade, wartime and all, but Addam only knew what he had read in books, and he had a sneaking suspicion that it hadn't been any Blades who'd been writing those with the requisite or at the very least appreciable firsthand experience.

"Do you...wanna do that with me?" As she said it, Mythra looked not taken aback but yet softened.

"Shouldn't I?" he asked gingerly, uncertainly for all the rhetorical bent.

The softness disappeared, and lines carved themselves in around browbone and lip. "I guess you should."

Without any further comment, she spun up a thread of ether between them. It wobbled faint blue, just as irresolute as Addam had ever imagined their bond should - no, would - no, could - look. He felt nothing any stronger in his own chest, where it seemed to have targeted.

"I'm not sure I can do much with that."

Mythra pursed her lips, chewed on them, tore away at the skin or cyberbiological facsimile thereof with careful teeth. "Yeah. Right."

The line fell away like it had never even been there in the first place. Maybe it hadn't. Judging by the sheer power that came blasting down from the heavens every time she called her Artifice - Siren, it was called, as he had recently learned - Addam was, as ever, afraid to find out the ramifications of what would happen if it had, and continued to be.

He tried to be encouraging, tried to give a genuine assertion of his gratitude that she'd been entrusted to him, that he was being given this chance to experience whatever it was that they were experiencing together, but she always just shrugged it off.

"What's gotten into you?" she'd say, or "C'mon, Addam, don't make this weird." At least the latter might even come inflected with a smile. It was such a blessing that she'd never bothered once with "Master" or "Lord" or "Prince", not even sarcastically. It made them just that one step closer to friends, comrades, equals, even it was born out of a lack of respect, mere ticks away from blatant disrespect. They could try, at least. They could always try.

Trust, trust, always with the trust. How long did it usually take, to earn the trust of your Blades, and them to earn yours? With Hugo, it was and had been instantaneous, of that much he was sure. Aegaeon was practically respect incarnate, Brighid the very icon of formidability. Hugo could not but be trusted, with that honest face and forthright voice. Was the will to respect, to venerate and be venerated, somehow encoded into their Cores as a result of serving a royal family for so long?

Consider Minoth, then, of course. His respect and trust was something Addam could never fathom deep enough how he had earned, for how so wily precious it had seemed to come. So curiously strong was it, even, that he suspected the Dark Blade, now Flesh Eater, regretted in the deepest cherished corners of his mind the perhaps involuntary action of ever granting it to Amalthus, for that it should so unfortunately linger still.

So then, was one year long enough to give the final verdict? One day had been enough - negative space and time, in fact, when he hadn't so much as touched the crystal but was already willing it away, away, away. He didn't hate her. No, far from it, as defensive as the thought felt he was not deflecting anything from half that close to home. The self-inflicted favor would be far too cute and coy, to say that his failing was in caring too much, but then again, that was it. He cared too much, for her and for the world, so as to cripple himself and twist the fear inwards.

Nasty, nasty thing. No, not nasty. Sad. Regretful. Regrettable. Haul up Minoth's entire entirely cerebral thesaurus, and lay out every maudlin descriptor in the damned thing. One of them would be right, and the others would saddle him with the shame of trying to claim them that he probably deserved, for his lackluster efforts.

Well, but get out of your head, Addam, need I remind you again? She's there waiting, to walk forward towards your next goal, the purpose of her life laid out in quite literally following her brother's footsteps. So small, so pointless, in the end, for such is destruction and even the endeavored prevention of it.

Will you walk with her, alongside her? Or will you chase after her, not knowing where she wants to go in much the same sense as that she has nary a tangible idea about it? A beacon true guided the prince could make in an instant, for anyone, for all the crackling incessant sunshine he exuded, but lo be it that Mythra herself was the only thing who, or what, could bring him a cloud.

I know what you're thinking, Mythra shouldn't ever have been to Aletta at all, by rights (that is, by dint of canon game cutscene dialogue), but just...patience, patience, my friends :).

Chapter 08: Am I Very Wrong? - "To hide behind the glare of an open-minded stare? To wander in the fear of a never-ending lie?"

coming to a place of commonality
one might see what you see
some might decide not to
but underneath is the choice
of whether they will even try

A far better example for Mythra to follow came soon after in the form of a positively fascinating Driver-Blade pair - a trio, even! - by the names of Lora, Jin, and finally Haze. And, with them, a friend for Milton: a much quieter tagalong named Mikhail who immediately latched on to the Gormotti boy, yet somehow managed to maintain every ounce of aloofness.

They started off, rather unfortunately, blade to blade, and, indeed, Blade to Blade, with the other two, Mythra once again gung-ho to call a Siren blast, but in a way not so different from the Ice Blade as he made to protect his Driver as fiercely as ever was possible. She, Lora, was arrested between fear and fending, the thought of Addam wresting Jin away from her all too feasible.

It was true, he talked a big game, but as soon as the Gargoyle Artifice was dealt with and the brunt of their battle had been swept into the amalgam of past events, Addam found himself only feigning actual consideration of "slaying them right here" or "repossessing lost trinkets". His own first resonance was the real trinket, merely a feeble imitation of what was undoubtedly Lora's first, with their implicit trust as displayed so physically, so fully realized, with the exchange of weapons.

"Who cares about Paragons anyway?" It sounded damned magnanimous, really, but then if you dug deeper...what is a Paragon if not a miniature Aegis, and he'd said "my mission", "I come out here", "who do I save" like Mythra wasn't even there. A bit of making her own bed if she'd deign to lie, maybe, because she must have known by this point that you didn't start even the most casual or formal acquaintanceships, whichever, by straight-off insulting people and their goals, dreams, beliefs.

Addam wasn't a kiss-up (not even back to his teenage years had he been), so Mythra had no excuse of perhaps deciding to go volte-face against namby-pamby him. He was kind, but he was honest, goofy but ultimately feeling. She was not kind, really, in the least, and only brutally honest, like it wasn't even a choice she'd made; goofy or feeling again showed a nil reading and then accidental depth.

Later, when he confronted her about the same, and brought about a genuine compliment, which really could be drawn from the affair, if you only looked, she flushed startling crimson and turned away, locking arms around herself to stop the feelings from coming in - or perhaps from leaking out. He towered more than half a foot over her, and his hand made a lingering brush out into the space between them that she'd just opened up, but in the end he could only smile wistfully.

She was trying. He was trying. They were all trying. It was indeed all, Architect love them, that they could do.

"A simpleton?!"

Addam watched helplessly (rather uselessly, in fact) as Brighid and Mythra took turns whaling alternately insults and blows, all viscious, upon each other. He knew Brighid, at least circumstantially, and it wasn't as if he would argue with the things she was saying. Mythra did tend to go all out for no reason, without really studying the enemy's weakness like he suspected she was well able to do.

If she was "clumsy" and "unrefined" and everything else Brighid was saying, could that really be his fault? He was focused on making sure Mythra didn't overextend her powers, but the baseline of technique? That had to be on her, right? To do something so simple as strike the shell off a Krabble's back or catch a Caterpile where it rolled, that didn't require anything of the Driver, surely.

His reasoning cry of "We've got children here!" sounded even more pathetic than he'd thought it would. When Haze had plied her restricting power on the both of the warring Blades, Mythra's anger only turned towards their own group, and on him, as ever.

"Addam plainly ordered you to stop," Lora said indignantly, but he hadn't ordered, more begged, implored, entreated, like a hapless father would a headstrong daughter when he knew he was woefully ill-prepared and even completely unprepared to take on the situation as she would see it.

And why had she said "ordered", anyway? Lora never ordered Jin to do anything - even just thereafter, when Aegaeon suggested they board the Ardainian flagship to discuss next moves, she'd pleaded for him to go in her stead like a sweet, stubborn child, as if he were the father, or an older brother, at least. And he'd sighed because it was silly and even a little petulant, but his final acceptance, a half-heaved half-grumbled "Of course. I will do as you wish," carried at least a hint of amusement.

Why couldn't he and Mythra do that? Why couldn't they have that? An arm around her shoulders not as a gesture of unwelcome jocularity or even more unwelcome discipline as she was about to haul off something fierce and call an Artifice or swear at Milton or burn the dinner, for the heavens' sake, but as a simple "I care about you, and I want you to know that I'm in this with you - we're in this together." Or no, that wasn't even really what Lora's team, or Hugo's for that matter, was about.

First with Jin and Haze: "I'll protect you, because you are warm and light and you are good and it is all I have ever known, to want to protect you." Then over again, or even if they had come before, Brighid and Aegaeon: "I'll protect you, because you are young and strong and you are good and it is all I have ever known, to want to protect you."

But Mythra? She didn't need or want to protect Addam (if she did, it didn't exactly show as humanistic as would be nice), and she didn't need protecting for her own sake, she needed protecting as emanated from her, from her damned dangerously glowing Core. How could Addam protect her, if he was even just so afraid of the surety of her step? And wasn't she afraid of the very same? She must have been, mustn't she...?

Mythra parroted the Driver-Blade motto of them being one in body and soul almost like a lifeline at times, it seemed. And, Addam rarely took her up on it, letting Milton or Brighid or just someone, anyone else give her lip about it, because that was the one thing she could give and take in strides and spades. Haze, who she'd deemed the "master of lowkey shade", was no different, and perhaps that was a cheering thing.

"C'mon Haze, let's make it quick, so we can go eat snacks together."

The tail end of Mythra's ever-so-slightly braggadocious comment carried a half conspiratorial, half affectionate tone rather unlike her. To play counterpart, or perhaps counterpoint, Haze didn't blush giddily like one might expect of her own self, only considered the remark carefully. They did indeed make it quick, driving off a Feris from their makeshift camp with a well-timed blast of wind and a flurry of photonic strikes.

As they sallied forth to the pouch full of snacks, Haze made to rejoin on their one-sided shard of a conversation. "You know, Mythra, you really can be very nice when you try."

Mythra reluctantly paused her chewing of a Spicy Scorpion Cookie. "What, and come out all goody-two-shoes like you? No way," she declared around a mouthful of tomato-pepper filling. "I'm the Aegis, and the Aegis bows for no man or woman!"

"Or monster, right?" Haze added, taking a careful bite of her own treat.

"That's right! See, Haze, isn't it fun being a little cocky from time to time?"

Mythra was pointedly ignoring the watchful side-eye gaze of Addam, who should have been fully preoccupied by his conversation with Hugo, but who was, like always, way too ready to butt in to her business. Well, can't call me a simpleton if I say I chose to be this way, right? That'd show 'em.

During the calm of the Titan ship flight, unbeknownst to Mythra, Lora made her own personal inquisition into the principles and precipices of the illustrious Lord Origo (that didn't sound quite right, did it, and it never would), saying that she could tell how much power Mythra was using just by looking, as if her seventeen years of experience with a single Blade, and then about five more with a second, should truly inform how the very Aegis worked.

She was right on the count of his impression, though. "Power lends one an air of capability." A good line, and not even just that. He laid out for her in the span of minutes all the fruitless, frivolous wads of overthinking he'd built up over the past year. One could only hope that the mercenary's oh-so-sage analysis of Mythra herself being too uncomfortable with her own conclusions to voice them was actually true and grounded.

Fear, fear, fear and more fear. It was stupid and it made him grimace if it didn't just make him groan and think of all the growing he had yet to do, with her and without her while time kept on surging by. There was feeling that had come out when they'd observed the graves in Torigoth, a point for striking down those poisonous thoughts, but it wasn't enough, and it wouldn't be enough until he didn't wake every morning dreading what the day might bring more than anticipating it.

But, back to Mythra. It, her self-presentation, proceeded to show 'em (perhaps even show her) again when they docked in Aletta, and while Addam was off fawning and being fawned over, Mythra posed the too-quizzical question of why exactly they were even there, as if she didn't fairly well know. Hugo answered her without pause, and Lora was so engaged by her awe of the palatial (not) quarterings that nobody stopped to consider why Mythra indeed wouldn't have known the very thing.

They were all just so ready to believe that she was plain stupid and uninformed, whether passively as they swiftly departed from her role in the conversation, or actively as Lora bemoaned Mythra's semi-sarcastic comment about the size of the place, or lack thereof. This should have reflected on Addam, not her, that she apparently had no knowledge of her Driver's residence.

It was around this time, of course, that Mythra began to realize the loose-cannon lifestyle she'd chosen didn't exactly merit the respect she'd thought she deserved. Milton, in fact, wasn't too young to know, but rather too old not to. Maybe she did act like a child. Maybe...maybe Addam was right, a little bit. After all, Brighid was an absolute bitch, but she was still smart, and pretty, and controlled with her whipswords. Ardainian dog leashes or not, they were slim and compact and precise, even when they snapped out to burn some fool or fiend.

When they planned to spar on the first yellowing gray-green tufts of the moor, just off the cobbling stone pavers that marked camp and perhaps home and the dreaded "Addam's domain", Mythra decided she would try that, to stand upright and able, to channel power not obediently but cooperatively, to work as a team.

Huh. She and Addam were a team. Milton? He didn't figure in hardly at all, even if he was...even if he was her friend, maybe. Addam tried to be her friend, but he wasn't one. He was her Driver. That was, well, only okay, as a concept. If she could be like Brighid, though, fast and powerful and untouchable, Foresight or not, then Team Addam would be the one to beat - and she didn't have to share, either!

For Minoth, the years after that day in Addam's bedroom were an unfortunate whirlwind. He began Titan-hopping more and more frequently, and the next thing he knew Addam was married and titled, shipped off to Aletta, and soon entrusted with the second Aegis. Travel was an aimless rove, trying to help people but remaining shadowy because Architect, what would they think of his perverted, defiled, profaned core?

He could be overthinking things. It might not really be that bad. But his fear and disgust of Amalthus drove him further and further from the warmth of society. He read and he wrote and gradually he became an expert on gathering information, dealing with the shady and the shaky alike.

With his sharp sense of humor and foreboding height, Minoth wasn't exactly fit for falling in with even the gruffest of mercenaries. You could never tell what kind of questions they'd get to asking, especially if the wraps on his gunknives fell away and revealed the Blade Crystal mounted thereupon.

A cloak was impractical for fighting (he'd considered a poncho as well), so he found an unbothered blacksmith to fashion up a smaller version of the miniature cuirass-like pieces that made up his chest plate and belt buckles, the newest of which he then forced over his most base set Core Crystal so that only gold protruded in between the filigree accents on the leather.

If anybody asked, he said it was to confuse the enemy - if one could pretend to be a Driver, couldn't one also pretend to be a Blade? But who was the enemy and who was confused, after all...?

War raged, famines rose. Villages flooded and burned, a Titan even sank, or so he'd heard. Swagger checked and both ears to the street, Minoth strolled through the Alba Cavanich mainway. Crowds were rough here, so a rogue like him fit right in. Not his kind of darkness, though.

A pair of soldiers were chatting up a young woman who looked ready to sock them even through their bronze helmets, were she not too afraid of the consequences that could come of assaulting a palace guard not two Titanpeds from Hardhaigh itself. You couldn't really call it chatting, then, could you?

Minoth clenched his fists, but stayed silent. How could they be so shameless, and he so afraid? Amalthus's words echoed hollowly in his mind. "Real hell might be...closer to something like this." Hell burned, hell rankled, hell flayed you in your worst wounds knowing you couldn't do a thing about it.

He'd never been, of course. And yet...the hellions don't have fear. When they torture you it's not because they've got their own concerns living in some desperate corner of their minds, if not foremost. Didn't Amalthus understand that?

Minoth exhaled a humorless laugh. He understood humanity better than his bygone Driver. What a farce.

A surly voice drifted out from a downright seedy pub on the corner. "I hear the Emperor's been seen on Gormott with that illegitimate prince o' Torna."

"Tch...a fool's errand, that," some equally despoiled compatriot answered. "One Aegis's the same as any other. They've not got a mind for us common folk, at any rate."

"Who does? It's all for their own greater glory. Our leader, the Praetorium, Uraya, and the rest. 'Not fit to be Emperor unless you're a Driver.' What a load of crap."

Minoth debated lurking in to knock off a shot and leach up any further gossip, but that strategem's usefulness was soon nullified by the next words from one of the patrons.

"They're gone off to Torna next." A tankard clanged impression and esteem, or what pathetic vestiges of those virtues could be summarily dredged up in a place like this. "Aye, let 'em. Our Titan's fucked enough already."

Shit, Minoth thought contemptuously. You could've fooled me.

Imagine I'm standing behind you (or don't, if that's creepy) and softly whispering "womp womp" right around the second horizontal rule ;D.

( In other words, if that was unclear...

Mythra: i don't have to share Addam :)
Minoth: i miss hooking up with Addam :(
me, whispering: womp womp

...but that's convenient generalization, no sexy times were had. )

At this juncture, you should absolutely definitely beyond a shadow of a doubt read this absolutely stellar during-canon one-shot. (Can I say I'm subsuming it into my own canon here? Not really [not at all], but it's so wholly freaking excellent that I simply must point you to it here.) Also check out the oh-so-fabulous author IwaKitsune's other work! Here's another one for kicks, and its author Ikasury has plenty of other great stories too!

On a slightly different note, here's some actually pretty fluffy Addam & Mythra content, a nice change of pace from what it's so easy to write from canon, by the always wonderful queermoraghid.

I love love love this idea, and thanks so much to the original poster for, well, posting it and inspiring me to look for other fantastically reasonable recipe translations of the Torna food! (And we'll just ignore the fact that you wouldn't actually be able to make these yet in-game based on area and thus item/collectible access, shhh...)

Chapter 09: Eleventh Earl of Mar - "Bury your memories, bury your friends. Leave it alone for a year or two."

I'm sick and tired, and I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired of the life that I lead.

It was a wonderful bit of theatrical luck for Minoth that he ran into Addam's party just as they were struggling to gain an edge on a Leftherian monster. He'd faced one just the other week - or was it month? No matter. Fighting was the world's language, and he fit in without reprobation. "You've got some power in your corner now!" he'd crowed, even knowing that he was probably the weakest one there.

Lora and Jin swiftly won his admiration, as did Brighid and Aegaeon. Haze was just oversaccharinely sweet, Hugo a little stiff, and Mythra way too disconnected even for the Flesh Eater's tastes. The kids? Eh, he could do without, since it seemed they thought the same. He had come for Addam, and Addam he had found, so that was fine enough.

They all gave him due berth at the campfire that night, despite not excluding him from the circle. He didn't yet know that it was unusual for the Emperor's Blades and Addam and Lora's tag-alongs to sit with the rest, but of course he had to go and make it awkward by cutting right to the heart of Driver-Blade bonds.

He could feel Jin's icy gaze working him over, studying him, though not quite getting a full read before Haze derailed the conversation into discussions of favoritism. Minoth smiled amiably along, secretly thankful for the distraction.

Why was he so ready to trust these people? Why had he so immediately bared his own identity? Well, because Addam hadn't really given him a choice. Talking of Amalthus and capabilities and all the obvious truths that could really have done with remaining unsaid.

But then again, no - he was the one who'd come in guns blazing and Core showing. It was because he trusted Addam. "How else am I gonna keep tabs on you?" he'd said. Truth was, he wanted someone to keep tabs on him for a change.

Even just after the introductions had ended, it had been so easy to simply join in with the motley crew. Minoth parsed Addam's relationship with Mythra with relative ease: his tendency to overextend himself at any opportunity to help someone and guide them along, even when it landed his arse in the fire, was well juxtaposed against his boyish and undergrown maturity. In other words, he was trying his damnedest to act more or less as her father, and it wasn't working out. She was far too barbed and he far too soft to get a good handle on the persnickety nuances, yet he couldn't find himself being a friend and confidante to her in equal measure.

"Cloud Sea Crab Sticks are tasty, aren't they," he'd said, "and you're very welcome!" Making a jab at her that lorded his status over her, while at the same time trying to coalesce it into witty banter. It didn't do, Prince. It didn't do at all. The Gormotti boy, Milton, took up some sass of his own and made a cheeky poke at Mythra's behind, and while Minoth thought it a fair deal in poor taste as well as just plain mean, it was at least a more genuine approach to friendship, because that's what he suspected Addam really wanted, in the end.

Poor lonely little prince. Heh, what a joke. At that very moment, the Aegis - the second Aegis, in fact! - was hurtling over Olnard's Trail chest first, chasing a ten-year-old boy with miniature feline ears and wicked fangs to match all because he'd pinched her cellulite, and her Driver, a bastard prince from a major world power, was standing by and watching. A small horde of nearby Legia Fliers buzzed and bristled at the kids' approach, the only creatures around with any damn basic sense left.

"You'd better watch you don't run us up into any more monsters," Addam called after them. (Minoth took his last thought back, privately.) "I'm afraid I don't have any other long-lost acquaintances hidden up my sleeves for when you do - that is, if I had sleeves at all, eh, Minoth?" Oh, what was this, a cue?

"Sounds about right, Addam. If I've got any up mine, I'll be sure to let you know." Pleased with the turn of the conversation, Addam propped hands on hips and smiled benignly at his Light Blade charge, who had circled back up to the group at last, Milton in tow.

"Well, now we've got that settled!" Way too bright. Way, way too bright.

"Yeah, whatever. Thanks, Dad," Mythra rolled out sardonically, tone matching the course of her eyes.

Unsure of how exactly to interpret her juvenile quip, they all just stared rather blankly at her. "Uh...why is everyone looking at me?" she rejoined after enduring five seconds too many of awkwardness.

"Er, well, you just called Addam 'dad'," Lora explained, a bit too apologetically, when no else had volunteered to do so. "You said 'Thanks, Dad.'"

"W-what? No I didn't! I said 'Thanks, I guess.'" Addam glanced at Minoth, sending him a none-too-subtle signal of "Look, this is what I've got to put up with now, and won't it be fun for you, too?"

"Do you think of me as a father figure, Mythra?" was what he said out loud.

"You-- No! If anything I see you as a bother figure because you're always bothering me!"

Minoth returned the look, and Addam's sheepish grin was all the invitation he needed. "Hey, show your father some respect." The subsequent glare he earned from Mythra? Bone-searing, but so worth it.

Talk of respect and bonding was better met by the young emperor, who was taking an unexpectedly benevolent tack of assuredness that they, Ardainian and Flesh Eater of dubious, even unknown, origin, should be exactly the same type of brothers in arms as the two royals were.

"Simple and strong, like a rope weft from a stout and common plant." Stout and common...he could get along with that, it was him through and through. Only it wasn't, and Hugo couldn't possibly have known the skewed situation that was his relationship with Addam.

"Say, Your Majesty...how long was it that you've been bonded with Brighid and Aegaeon?"

The question had absolutely no effect on Hugo's composure. "With Brighid, roughly four years. With Aegaeon, almost six. They are dear companions, and I will be forever grateful to have and have had them by my side."

Minoth couldn't help but admire Hugo's remarkable cadence and sentence structure, and the masterful use of language to convey gravity and emotion without swaying a second's discipline. Yet... "Have had, you say, but there shouldn't ever be a time when you're alive without them now, huh?"

"That's right," Hugo allowed, seeming now slightly off balance. "If all goes aright with the Architect's plans, I should never rise another day without Aegaeon there to greet me, or Brighid to bring me a report of the day's activities." And they traded off those duties, too, Minoth thought, because their devotion needs must come in equal measure as much as it came in constancy.

"So then, how long have you known Addam?"

"Ah," Hugo started with the faintest trace of a smile. "Him I've known for eight years now, and my gladness for his friendship, as inappropriate as it may be for me to say, marks much less for granted."

It didn't take a mathematician to tell that that was the same eight-year span since that fateful bit of informational excavation in the Praetorium library. Here pick up an emperor, there pick up a future fugitive of the system. This prince of theirs was full-on ridiculous if he was even a modicum of a jester.

They stood, and Minoth lost sight of the Emperor's head for a moment. He quickly adjusted, though it rather pinched his neck.

"Well, young Master Hugo, I hope my writing can indeed mark us compatriots with just the same valor, eh?"

"You'll write about us, then?"

"Hmmm..." Minoth put a hand to his chin, and in that moment their postures were matched. "If you prove yourself worthy, of course I couldn't help but do so! Isn't that right?"

"Right it is," Hugo answered. "I shall aim ever higher, in an effort to reach those lofty standards for the good of all." Lofty? Him? In stature of mind only, but that couldn't be helped, then, could it.

The day that followed was remarkably more mundane than Minoth had expected. Gather some Nest Extract, and neutralize all the dangerous insect stingers in the general area while they were at it? Sure. Show off their combat prowess to the ridiculous duo of a Nopon Driver and a Brute Blade? Why not!

That was all fine and good, and it amused Minoth greatly to see Addam acting such a benevolent servant of the people for even the most trivial of requests, but what interested him more was how the prince didn't so much as glance in the vaguest general direction of the manor window the many times they were down in front of the garrison. He could only hope that that didn't spell trouble in paradise - or the hinterlands, whichever.

Preparations over halfway through the second day, it was finally time to journey through to Hyber. Once there, the do-gooding began anew - even mercenaries did more picking and choosing! They had collected a veritable slew of tasks by the time evening fell.

The village innkeeper, a jolly but aging sort named Teo, ushered them inside, but this poor village probably never saw more than eight guests at a time in more peaceful days, and there were only nine beds. Mikhail, not yet comfortable enough to share a bed with Milton, clung close to Lora, who, true to her word, was sharing with Haze, so Minoth quickly volunteered to spend the night outside. None of them knew him well enough to object, and from the sound of it, he didn't regret not being in the room when the Aegis started throwing things at that (mostly) innocent Gormotti boy.

The next morning, Lora and Jin ventured out to the Ice Blade's old house on the outskirts of town. It was a scintillating prospect, having lasting memories that stood in corporeal form at such size as a house. He'd make sure to keep that in mind for one of his next plays.

Minoth was just jotting down some notes on this very topic when out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Lora mischievously posing a question to Teo, Jin in reluctant tow. The old man practically jumped, and hauled out a camera's apparatus as quick as he could.

It looked like nobody else had noticed besides the Dark Blade, so he made no comment. When next he looked up, Addam was standing over Teo's shoulder, oohing and aahing over this gadget or that, like as not about to call Hugo over as well. Jin's embarrassment was only mounting, Minoth saw, and he almost chuckled. He knew what it was like to have an infinitely well-meaning but mortifyingly optimistic Driver.

Wait - a Driver? What was he...?

Arrested by his own confounding and certainly highly unexpected thought, Minoth jerked his eyes away, back towards the actual other side of the table. It was an unfortunate tactical choice, because Mythra was sitting there, of a sudden, cheek gratuitously leant on palm and fingers rapidly (annoyingly) a-drumming.

"What's that, your diary?"

The quickness of his own response surprised him. "And what if it is? You've got something against that?"

She snorted, then blew a raspberry. It was a little bit impressive, actually: she was practically three for three on irritating facial machinations, stopping just short of the ever-elusive stuck-out tongue. "Not in general, but if it's yours?"

"If it's mine?" Minoth prompted, feeling far too genial for what he was receiving in return.

"Wouldn't wanna read it."

He straightened up, effectively leaning back in his seat, and crossed his arms. "Is that supposed to be some kind of high praise, if someone does want to snoop into your most private thoughts?"

Mythra smirked. "Oh, so you admit it. You were staring at Addam and writing all about it." The way she rolled the Ls was blatantly victorious, but still, she looked uncomfortable at the content of her jab.

"What I'm doing with this manuscript is neither here nor there for you," Minoth rapped out, trying to be pleasant but feeling himself get a little steely.

"You got that right," Mythra returned, standing and pivoting on her heel.

"You suck," was the offering of her and in fact the last word (words, really, so it wasn't as punchy). It wasn't worth calling after her. He didn't feel any of the same apparent malice, anyway. For all he'd questioned her about being from the same stock as and of Malos, he didn't get the same impressions from the two Aegises at all. A shame, really. He'd rather wanted to like her. Well, but he could still do his best to provide agreeable, not to say snippy, banter.

Minoth continued writing for quite a while after that - and no, none of it was "most private thoughts" about Addam. Eventually, he was interrupted by a bit of a commotion.

What was this? Haze was gleefully dragging each and every one of them into place, from a pouting Mythra to an amused Brighid. The composition of the group photo came in fairly obvious teams, but with the two boys in front of Haze and Mythra, the right side was conspicuously front-heavy.

"Not for me," Minoth muttered to himself, picking up his quill once again. He was just along for the ride - no more, and no less.

Too soon, he heard the low thrums of Addam's voice, as the prince conferred some quiet counsel upon and even with Haze. Next thing he knew, the Wind Blade was pulling at his own arm with surprising force, making an unfortunate drag of ink across his recently pristine page and causing him to stumble up from the table.

"Come on, Master Minoth, there's a spot here just waiting for you!" The Dark Blade scowled at Addam as he took the designated spot, looking determinedly at an anthill that was dangerously close to becoming a cave-in under one of the camera's tripod legs.

"Uh, I'm sorry. When did this become a group thing?" Finally, Lora voiced what he was thinking. Now there was a woman with some sense! His kind of person.

"You can't have done this in secret anyway!" Haze insisted, coaxing agreement out of Milton.

"We all drink from the same well, don't we? That's a wise saying, I think." Oh, Addam was really trying his patience today.

"I don't think that's strictly applicable here," Minoth clipped out pointedly. He could hear Brighid and Aegaeon having a similar tussle at the other side of the frame, and who were more similar than they?

"Oh, come off it, Minoth, you're making me look bad!" With that, a princely arm wrapped easily around his neck and over the far shoulder, and suddenly the Flesh Eater was a little less annoyed about the whole thing.

"Oh, for the love of...who did we fall in with here?" Lora was so definitely right, but Minoth couldn't help tossing out a quip.

"I've been asking myself the same thing for the better part of a decade with this one, Lora," he commented, cocking his head at the prince, who looked devilishly pleased by the exchange.

"Okay, everybody ready for the photo?" Teo himself readied the flash and shouted some asinine phrase or other meant to get them all to show their pearly whites. They certainly needed it, but it was only Milton who ended up cheesing, with his own hand on the ever-reticent Mikhail's shoulder. The shutter snapped once, twice, three times, a copy for each team.

When all was said and done, Minoth was sure he looked like a Ponio's ass - his genuine smile wasn't something that came out all that often, and so he hadn't much opportunity nor occasion to practice it. But when Addam used the hand on his shoulder to pull him closer, brace his opposite cheek, and plant a proud kiss on the unscarred side of his face, Minoth absolutely knew he was grinning like a fool.

To think that the man fourth in line to the throne of an entire nation was proud to stand alongside him-! Maybe this would go alright, and he'd be able to count himself lucky enough to fall in with the prince for upwards of a decade more.

Ohohoho, the boys are back and they're dumber than ever. And yes, you read that one scene right - nine times out of ten, if I think of a scenario/exchange/descriptor/joke (in this case a popular chat-format/incorrect-quote conversation from Brooklyn 99), it's going in, and very little gets left on the cutting room floor. To quote Aegaeon: "Ah...I see that attitude extends to your crack, too." Even as I'm trying to make this the Addam/Minoth Definitive Works, I'm trying to have a little something for everyone as well :) !

Chapter 10: Dancing with the Moonlit Knight - "You know what you are, you don't give a damn, bursting your belt that is your homemade sham."

They said forever; I look around and see no leopards, only chameleons. What is forever but a little while?

"Say, Minoth. Fancy giving me a whack at those gunknives of yours?"

Couldn't they just have one normal day without this stupidity? The Golden Twin Mesa was a hell of a sight - or rather, Turquos Plateau looked beautiful as the view from it. But no, Addam just had to go and make it cockeyed.

"Did you somehow get even nuttier since I last saw you, Prince? Why on earth would I do that?"

Addam only laughed - the answer was yes, he was even more of a (handsome) moron. "Come now, didn't I hear you fawning all over the way Lora and Jin pass their weapons back and forth? I myself was quite taken with it too, when we first fought against them."

Minoth scoffed. "Sure, and if you were actually listening in that airhead of yours you would have heard that I was talking about their bond, not the mechanics of what they were doing. In fact, I believe I mentioned that caveat specifically."

"Their bond?" Addam asked, a little too pointedly inquisitive to be truly genuine.

"Yeah, their bond. Driver and Blade, Blade and Driver, all that. Look at you, Mr. Man About Torna - do I really have to spell it out for you?"

"Well, no, but I thought we could approximate well enough." Well enough for what? For a Rhogul to come swooping in, knock him on his ass, and leave the prince holding his depowered weapons? To what end?

"Oh please, Addam, you don't want that."

"I'm...not sure what you mean, but nevertheless. You want to try with just the mechanics, then?"

Something suspiciously familiar, yet in a dreadfully unfamiliar way, was stirring in the general vicinity of Minoth's chest. If anything deserved a distraction, that feeling did.

"Fine, I'll humor you." He handed the weapons over still reluctantly, with a drawled "I want those back, you hear?"

Addam immediately set to fiddling with the mechanism of the barrel, left hand slotted firmly into the space between the blades, much to Minoth's chagrin. He seemed to be preoccupied with attempting to pull the handle out, which was pretty stupid - you had to push it in to temporarily disengage the lock before it would swivel, of course. But, Minoth let him have a go, because it beat the secondhand embarrassment that would surely come of watching the prince actually try to use the damn things.

"So how do you work these, anyway?" Addam muttered, more to himself than Minoth would have expected. "I should have Hugo take a look, I'm sure he'd be fascinated."

Oh, no way. Minoth reached out and snatched the weapon away, momentarily vascillating on whether or not he would actually make a show of what the trick was, before simply snapping the handle into place and flipping the gun over to hand it back - holding it by the crystal mount, not the handle.

Of course, like the clown he was, Addam accepted the offering by grabbing the magazine release (more of an instant refill button on a cartridge-less gun) and trigger almost simultaneously, letting loose a spray of bullets in the direction of some stray Survee Antols (and likely more or less right through Minoth's chest if he hadn't swiftly ducked aside). They were about to swarm over, bristling at the affront, but Minoth made a tired clicking noise between his teeth that quelled the surge, for the time being at least.

Then, he sighed. "All that engineering you people do in Torna, and you've never held a gun before?"

Without waiting for Addam to answer, he ambled over behind the prince and mirrored his posture, right hand over right hand and shoulder over shoulder. Addam's grin was sly, opportunistic, chin tilted impossibly sassily in the tight space between their mouths.

"Well, Minoth-" "Shut your trap, Prince. You can kiss me later." He could feel Mythra's bore gaze drilling myriad photon-sharp holes in the back of his head, and he didn't want to rile that beast any more than was strictly necessary.

"Oh, can I?" Minoth gritted his teeth. "You didn't hear me say that."

Scanning the mesa for an easy and unprovokable target, Minoth eventually decided on a patch of fluorescent nettles about thirty paces away. They were both incredibly straightforward to make out and fairly obviously binary in their status of alive or dead, as well as being plentiful throughout the surroundings and hard to actually take out, slim and willowy as they were, so they'd be good to practice on. And, they weren't sentient, so they couldn't fight back either in physical form or inside Addam's head - the prince wasn't as much of a wholesale pacifist as Jin, but he didn't much like needlessly harming wildlife, Minoth knew.

"Okay, Addam. Follow where I'm aiming." The implicit instruction was to align the identical weapons, one on top of the other, but somehow Addam received the notion as an invitation to crane his neck up higher and observe the target vicariously from the direction of Minoth's gaze. Idiot. Minoth reached around his left side as best as he could and shoved the muscular arm into place.

"Is your index finger on the trigger?"

"Oh, no, but it is now, don't worry."

"Take it off."

"Oh."

"Now press the other button just underneath the crystal - once."

A fresh round of bullets appeared, floating around the barrel. He had to readjust the wayward arm yet again before they tried a first few shots, but nothing hit, leaving only splotches of dead and deader yellow-brown grass in the wake of their impromptu training session. Addam had no punitive discretion either, squeezing off whole rounds at a time de facto instead of being judicious with his ammunition. Not to say that he was wanton, but skillful? Not a chance.

After yet another skyward look, seeking an infusion of strength, Minoth nimbly repossessed the guns, and with a practiced flourish (one that was a little bit unnecessary, if he was being honest) spun them from hand to hand as he snapped on the safety, unlocked the handle, swiveled the hilt, and whatever else he needed to do to drill in the impression that these weren't toys and they were his like nothing else, things that couldn't be learned and were precious representatives of skill hard-won. Too bad Addam wasn't really paying attention, only peering into the distance at Lora, Jin, and Haze all talking and laughing together.

Heh. They were complicated, just like him. He treasured that aspect to his weapons, secretly. To any casual observer, they were just haphazard collections of gears or Bladekind whatnot draped in excessively gluttonous quantities of bravado. Regardless, they, whether the pronoun denoted the weapons or the duo of him and his experience, were serviceable enough, even affable. But try to get any closer? Well, it was like he'd said. You didn't want that.

Having steeped in his spiraling, self-exploratory, and perhaps even pretentious airs for a little bit too long, Minoth plied the end of a dagger to rotate Addam by the bare shoulder in his direction. The prince was properly shocked by such an event - killed the whole mood! He handed the weapon over with wordless gravity, making no motion towards any target besides himself and thus its twin.

"You want me to...spar with you?" Addam asked tentatively. "I'm not asking you to use it to assassinate His Imperial Majesty, that's for sure," Minoth quipped back.

Addam shook his head, absently weighing the dagger in his hand. "Won't I hurt you?"

Cute. Twirling the one he still held with careless fingers, Minoth replied, "I don't plan on it, do you?"

Every reluctant stab Addam made was met with the perfect block, some even barrel-to-barrel such that Minoth could wrest the second dagger away from his sparring partner and demonstrate a flashy dual-wielding move. Eventually, they decided to handicap Minoth and give Addam an edge by handing the Blade the Driver's greatsword to defend himself with against two knives. It made, unfortunately, no difference, because you couldn't rightly multiply a measure of agility and balance that added up to approximately zero in the first place.

Well, not that the exercise was entirely without merit. To be sure, it was very beneficial to be able to watch how the prince's chest worked underneath his armor as he scrapped fruitlessly to get a slice in, how the petite tuft of hair on the right side of his face swung from side to side with the effort, how sweat beaded on his cheeks and shoulders from the heat of the day.

He'd, ah, certainly had time to work out since their last meetings, if those biceps were any indication. The sparring itself was child's play, so Minoth had plenty of freedom to observe. Time well spent, though he'd never say so. In truth, he was probably indulging in a privilege undue. But, who was to say? It couldn't hurt to stare just a little while longer.

When they'd finally sheathed the blades (Addam with the heaving ache of a good man done a long day's work, Minoth with cagey possessiveness), the unwilling professor made his final pronouncement.

"Your aim's terrible, my prince, and you look about to fall over when you use the daggers."

If Addam was disheartened by these words, he didn't show it. "Have faith, Minoth! I'll learn in time - after all, you're such an able teacher, I'm sure."

"Oh, I'm sure," Minoth mocked back. "Too bad you can't teach style."

And just what had happened to not talking about the power or technique? Addam mused to himself. For all her standoffishness, Mythra had first handed him the hilt of her gigantic, unorthodox sword without so much as a "You better not fuck it up, you dumbass." (Language! he'd thought, but he indeed wasn't her father, and they weren't exactly polite company in general, so he hadn't said anything.)

They, his Blades or facsimilies thereof, were very alike, after all, and then again couldn't be more different. The same went for Jin and Haze, and yet they... Standing off to the side, composed as ever, Hugo gave him a forlorn look that was anything but knowing, compassionate and maybe even sympathetic but not empathetic, never empathetic.

Just like relating to the common people, the Emperor, partner Blades always in perfectly reverent and supportive tow, couldn't hope to really, truly understand the dynamic. An interesting way of fighting? More like an interesting, and in the end futile, way of bonding.

Fat gray clouds grumbled menacingly above Lake Wynn in Dannagh Desert. Minoth appraised the skies. "Sounds like trouble," he said, looking to Aegaeon for confirmation.

The stoic Blade nodded. "The storm will be heavy, but not violent. My liege, shall we rest here?"

"If you are in assent, Addam?" Hugo replied, passing the chain of execution to their continental liasion.

The prince smiled broadly, as ever. "Shall we keep it going? Jin, what do you think?"

Jin's expression was unknowable beneath his mask, but his voice carried amusement. "It seems a fine time to rest. Lora?"

She was just as enthused, and wriggled her eyebrows playfully. "I'm game if Haze is!"

"I'm with Lady Lora. Don't you agree, Lady Brighid?" Haze continued the frivolous game with abandon, and the final member of their party sighed.

"If you all insisted on taking roll this way every night, we'd be overrun by Volff before a week was up. But yes, we may camp here. I have no objection."

Grins broke out all around at the decision, ignoring Mythra's consternation at being passed over (or rather, passed up, since it would have fallen to Brighid to include her, Addam notwithstanding). The most important piece of information, which had remained unsaid, was that their resting place would be shielded from a potentially overflowing lake by one of the Titan's rocky appendages or other. No way to completely circumvent the rain itself, of course.

"Hey!" Milton yelled indignantly from beneath all their shoulders. "What about me and Mik?"

Mythra looked down, already bored. "Well, what about you shrimps? Got something to say?"

"Mik wants to take a swim before the rain starts," the first prawnlike youth explained, obliging Mythra's query despite all insult and earning a rough elbow from the second. Apparently that had been intended to remain a secret and unfulfilled confession.

Addam frowned. "Are you sure that's wise?"

Wise or not, Mythra offered, "I'll watch them," and brushed off his parental worry probably just for the principle of the thing.

"What, not coming in with us?" Milton teased. "You're basically wearing a swimsuit already." And maybe he was right, but the Light Blade only glared.

Giving in, Addam cautioned, "Alright, but if you're in trouble, yell as loud as you can, just in case more hands are needed."

The remaining adults (though Mythra wasn't really much of one to begin with) set about assembling firewood and seating. Haze and Hugo parceled out items from a pack full of blanket rolls and their dry provisions. They'd rustled up some Aspar meat on their way to the lake, so Jin pulled out Hugo's roughly-smithed cast-iron pot in which to prepare the evening meal. Aegaeon was checking their drinking water, and Addam and Lora were mulling over some notes on fellow travelers' requests.

Brighid stood to the side, looking slightly perturbed. Minoth had already removed his gauntlets and gloves in advance of their evening pursuits, and upon seeing her downward cast shed his jacket as well.

"Might I offer you my jacket, Brighid?" he started genially. At her glance (he'd quickly learned to expertly read a face without the fullest standard expressiveness of eyes), he clarified, "To shield your arms from the rain. Or the droplets, at least."

Her cheeks flushed purple. "Why, Minoth...that's very kind of you. Yes, you may," she answered, turning her back to receive the garment over her shoulders. It was rather large on her, so she didn't need to thread the jagged flames cresting her arms through the sleeves.

"You're rather forward, Master Minoth," an even voice rumbled. Aegaeon, Aegaeon, what a precious boy, but you're so stiff! Don't you remember? Minoth thought to himself. Drama, and make me an opening, like I've been saying all this time. Well, only a few days it had been, in all actuality, but never mind that. Back to the dialogue at large.

"Oh come on, Aegaeon! Do I need your blessing just to offer a lady my jacket and chivalry?"

The Water Blade gave a rare smile and withdrew from the conversation. Likely, he had other romantic prospects to meddle with...

"Woah. Gancho? More like gun show, am I right?"

"Thought you were watching the kids, Mythra. Do you really have time to be staring at my chiseled physique?"

"Piss off, cowboy." A little acerbic, but she was no deterrent to his enjoyment of the group dynamic.

Speaking of being attuned to the dynamic, he caught Brighid stealing a glance and hitching her shoulders underneath his jacket. Unsurprisingly, she disclosed her own thoughts instead of waiting to be caught out.

"You do keep yourself in admirable shape, Minoth. The body of a warrior with the mind of an orator...would that all of Mor Ardain's nobility were so self-possessed."

Privately, Minoth admired the same things about the Jewel. He considered saying as much. Ah, not yet. Not quite.

"That's quite a blow at Hugo, Brighid dear." Now he was being forward. She bristled at the casual, even intimate address, but made no motion to cast off the proffered garment.

"He is brave and true, as the Emperor should be, but his stature does him no favors."

Minoth crossed his arms. Hey, the lady wasn't wrong - she never missed. "Makes him a perfect match for Haze, don't you think?" he asked playfully, hazarding further scandalous conversation.

As might easily have been predicted, Brighid drew back. "What are you implying?"

He laughed now, ridiculous but free. "You haven't heard! Aegaeon's playing quite the matchmaker with those two. I'd bet you right now he's spying on them, waiting for their hands to make the tiniest brush inside the supplies satchel."

"And are you thinking the same thing?" She had caught him off guard, and he wasted no time with pretense. An inquiring hand moved towards hers, eliciting a small but deliberate consenting motion.

Minoth grasped warm blue fingertips and pressed his lips to the back of Brighid's left hand. "From time to time," he said fondly, to break the silence. He didn't expect anything dramatic like a glimpse of her storied violet eyes, and he didn't get it.

"You're quite the man. Do you like that cologne in particular, then?" She was referring to her most exquisitely crafted scent, and yes, he did.

"It's wonderful. Makes me feel like writing the grandest of odysseys and the purplest of prose."

Brighid nodded primly. "You'll let me know if you ever run low." It was a spoken truth more than a question, and Minoth forwent a half-sarcastic "Yes, dear." - now that would have been purple prose!

Firm believer in hot cowboy husband having some little chivalry moments with hot fire wife before she gets her own true wife, as a treat for both of them. In parting here I shall offer you this art - I'm not sure exactly how much the battle/field dialogue changes from JP to EN localization (see this tweet for an example) but listen. I'm not crazy. Minoghid.

Would like to highlight some more other stories that (I think) you will enjoy if you've enjoyed this one so far: here they are. Regardless of the time where they would fit (that's up to your own discretion), the first could be canon to what we have here, the second less so, and the third probably a little less so than that. Hopefully I've set up the characters and relationships well enough that it's easy to tell! But still, read them all, because they're all excellent - and please do check out SilverWolf96's other work, of course.

Chapter 11: Stagnation - "Here today the red sky tells his tale, but the only listening eyes are mine."

you cannot kill loneliness
for it was never alive
(that's the secret - it must be loved away)

After the better part of a week had worn its way through, Minoth got more comfortable tossing out random cryptic quips aimed at no one in particular during their fireside chats. Tonight, the topic was their next destination: Auresco.

"Maybe it's best if I wait out the front of the palace. I've got a bad feeling about this..."

Lora peered at him with interest. "Hmm? How bad are we talking, Minoth?" He ran a finger over his temple, near the scar, then straightened up.

"Actually...you guys'll be fine. Don't pay too much attention to my weird hunches."

Lora didn't waste much time arguing, dropping the subject with a simple "Okay. If you say so!" But, of course, Addam wouldn't keep his nose out of it, and made fine time snagging his acting Blade when it came time to kick dirt over the fire.

"You've got some qualm about our planned excursion to see the king?"

In the back of his mind, Minoth registered that Addam wasn't making any effort to delude himself about his relationship with his father. He was fairly well astonished that Lora hadn't made a big fuss when Mungo brought it up - but then, people knew who Addam Origo was. People didn't know what a Flesh Eater was, and that was the excuse he was about to put forward when the prince interjected.

"Are you that worried about seeing Amalthus again?"

Minoth scoffed. "Save your pity, Prince, I'm just being a coward. I fight with you now. Let that be it."

"Now, now, I-" The cowboy gave him a glare, and Addam put yielding hands up. "Alright, alright. I'll defend your position." And, Minoth hadn't asked for that, but, okay, thanks. At least he hadn't said- "To the last."

Ugh. "You seem pretty concerned about what's going on in my head, Addam." He tried not to say it with any particular affront, but the gruffness came through there nonetheless.

Addam was silent for a moment. "Do you somehow think that I don't care, or that I shouldn't?"

Ugh yet again, but with twice as much of Lora's beloved "oomph". This called for a theatrical scowl, if not a veritable stage sigh, if ever anything had.

"Not talking about that, Prince. What's up with the old homestead down there on the moor?"

"What's up with it? Well, before you arrived, we'd just straightened out a bit of a food shortage. Everything should be running smoothly now, and for quite some time going forward."

Minoth shook his head darkly. "I meant that whippersnapper wife of yours. You avoiding something?" Now Addam's face looked pinched.

"You might say that. She's, ah...we're expecting." Ah. That explained everything and, simultaneously, explained nothing.

"What, and she gets moody? I don't imagine it'd take much of your usual nonsense to send her flying off the handle on a good day, after all."

The pinched look was replaced by bewilderment. "You think that lowly of her, and me? Damn you, Minoth, stop making it out to be so childish."

That was his flimsy defense, and then it practically tumbled in upon itself - was he even aware?

"We had always joked, before I awakened Mythra, that the Aegis and I together, an unstoppable team, would make short work of Malos, and I'd be back home in a flash. Well, we were still joking about that three months in, and made the mistake of trying to have a child then. Somewhere along the way I promised her that I wouldn't come back until I had vanquished Malos, and...gah, look where that's got me. Noowl was the one to tell me, even."

Minoth leaned back in his seat, lifted his knees, and thumped his boots against the ground. "Wouldn't wanna be you, pal. But...you know I'm putting my proverbial ten-gallon hat in for you, and we'll make sure you get back home safe in time to see that baby."

This coaxed a smile out of the prince. "In other words, you're defending my position...?" "To the last."

"So you're a...Flesh Eater."

Minoth spread his arms wide in unexpectedly genial response to Jin's thesis statement (well, half-statement, half-question). "If you're looking for one, I'm your man. But, I'd advise you never to start looking for one. I've met some others who are...a fair bit more embittered than I am as a result of their procedure."

Jin gave a rare smile. "I don't make it my business to look for trouble, but I'll certainly keep your advice in mind." He was warming to something, that much Minoth could tell, but he didn't goad the Ice Blade on, only waited for his cue. "Your experiment...without sounding too indelicate, I assume it wasn't done with all that much care, towards either yourself or the outcome."

Nodding, Minoth ran a slow tongue over his teeth. "You're a bright one, Jin. It was painful, I'll say that much. And, I don't think they got any more careful with the ones who went after me. For all I know, they're still doing it. Might be checking over a recent batch of results as we speak." From atop the positively verdant fairylands of the Turqos Plateau, the thought was far and away...far and away.

What Minoth was saying only partially aligned with the core idea that Jin was stewing over. His remarks were surface level, and almost seemed like they couldn't go deeper than that anyway. With a deep breath, Jin broached something that from a cactus patch a ways away Lora could easily see made Minoth raise then furrow his brow at its gravity. It was a far cry from the way Jin kept his emotions always so masked, whether literally or figuratively, or both.

"My lady, I was speaking with Lady Brighid about how she keeps her skin in such perfect condition, and she mentioned a wonderful treatment that we can make! She said it calls for Forever-Furling Aloe, and that we can find some here - do you want to pick it with me?"

Haze's face was all too expectant, but when Lora waved her away with a distracted "Not now, Haze" and nothing so much as a glance, she schooled the drop with expert (read: practiced) facility.

Haze wasn't the only one who had followed her gaze to where it rested nigh eternally on Jin; Mythra had also made herself party to the impromptu girls' corner and began to gossip. It was somewhat unlike her, but certainly she had the technical potential for motive cattiness, if not the actual spirit itself.

"So, Lora..." the newcomer interrupted her concentration, "whaddya think's going on with those two?" She thrust her chin irritatedly at Minoth and an approaching Addam.

"Me? Them? I don't think anything's going on," Lora fumbled. "I just think they're good friends." Harmless though the turn of phrase was, Mythra yet grimaced.

"I don't know about that. I think the same thing's happening between the two of them that's happening between you and Jin." She'd made comments like this before, but that didn't stop Lora from getting frustrated at their implications.

"Mythra, I told you, Jin and I are not together. There's nothing between us!"

"Sure, sure." Mythra rolled her eyes, then engaged a conspiratorial whisper. "Must be what makes it so hard to spend time with Haze even when you're literally not doing anything else that would keep you occupied."

Confronted with her own bias, Lora promptly clamped her mouth shut. Behind their feet, Haze yanked off the slimy heads of those poor, poor tendrils of aloe with ever-increasing snap.

"Let's revisit that topic another time," Lora could suddenly make out from across the plateau, and puzzled about why that would be. Soon enough, she came around to the correct conclusion: at the end of a scene, it helps to say something a little louder to get the audience to wake up in preparation for the next. A habit learned from treasured hobby; it made her smile just a touch.

She watched as Addam and Minoth conferred quietly about something, Minoth making a crack and checking for Jin's not-altogether-subdued reaction, and then as Addam lost his footing with less of a jerk than a soft stumble and fell against Minoth's broad shoulder. The Flesh Eater caught him easily, but it took a good few moments of becoming thoroughly irked and continued compounded active exasperating before his expression softened and he pulled the immobile prince up to a more balanced position.

Then, of course, he set in to trying to shake Addam awake, and Lora heard him cycle through all his most favorite and least favorite epithets in the hopes that one would stick - none did. Eventually, he called over to Brighid, who came to hear Minoth's piece, frowned, and likewise called to Hugo, who had up until a minute ago been standing with Addam a ways off on the other side of the plateau.

His diction was impeccably clear despite the accent, as ever: "I feel a wee bit nauseous, but otherwise I am perfectly fine. Is anything the matter?"

Lora inched closer now to eavesdrop further, and listened as Brighid expertly discerned a flowering and thus pollenating plant hidden among the Pestronella weeds on top of the plateau. She relayed this information to Minoth, who rolled his own eyes. "Figures. He's allergic."

From their convenient perch of a semi-seclusion, Mythra exploded. "What?! He's allergic? To what? I didn't know he had allergies!"

"Isn't that a good thing, though?" Lora wondered in response - much calmer, though it would be hard not to be. "That means you've never had to worry about eating, or walking in, I suppose, anything you're not really able to without harming yourselves."

The sentiment was one she could relate to with versimilitude. "Am I wrong?" Mythra only fumed more.

While they quibbled, Aegaeon had joined the far contingent to consult about remedies, and Minoth's deliberation was painted plain on his face as he shifted his arms in preparation for a fireman's carry, then decided against it, at least for the time being. What, indeed, would they have done about such an event if he hadn't been there - he had only joined them a short while ago, after all - ?

Aegaeon could easily have lifted Addam, but Lora rather thought he wouldn't want to. Well, but she supposed she and Jin could have made a good enough effort of it. What about when the prince hadn't even been traveling with as big a troupe as they'd amassed? Was it left to Mythra and Milton, the latter currently looking on with wide eyes and encouraging Mikhail to do the same, to prop him up between them? He was trim, yes, but more or less all muscle, and tall, so he had to be heavy.

She'd heard Jin express thoughts of a similar nature before, hadn't she, though he'd mumbled his way through them, just like he always did. Traveling was just as much a joy with only a quiet few as it was with boisterous many, perhaps even more so at times.

"It's okay, Mythra," Lora said at last in her most reassuring tone. "I'm sure Addam hasn't forgotten about you."

"Oh, you're sure, are you? Thanks a lot." As if Lora could ever be an expert on that. Well, she was, just the wrong, wrong kind.

Watching once more as Minoth had decided on a bridal carry and inelegantly, perhaps only a little reluctantly, swept Addam up in preparation for the jump back down towards the lake, Lora began to doubt her innocent pronouncement. When he pretended to whisper something in the prince's ear, but really quite obviously hide a kiss right on the bridge from it to his cheek, she rather punted the idea off the plateau wholesale.

It wasn't often that Minoth said something he regretted. He was very measured and deliberate with his words, though his wit was so sharp and his humor so dry that it could easily be mistaken for an unsophisticated loose cannon of quips. When that did get turned around on him, though...well, it was usually when a certain prince was involved. On this occasion, he'd hazarded himself a little bit more familiar - a little bit too familiar - with them all, and what a glorious backfire it had been.

"Life has been bustling lately," he'd said, to no one in particular. "We've become like one big family."

And it was a cheering sentiment, something tossed off and agreeable, and Haze beamed and Lora reflected that light and Jin gave an imperceptible smile, and Hugo made an instinctual bowing motion and Brighid's eyelashes fluttered and Aegaeon wasn't paying attention, and even Mythra grinned, somewhat, along with Milton and a reluctant Mikhail.

They were splashing round the rim of a temperate spring at the edge of a still very much hostile desert in their various individual semblances of a swimsuit, for goodness's sake, and let that be it. But no, the great Addam Origo had to have his ever-gracious two cents to put in.

"You never have the time to feel lonely anymore!" he'd exclaimed way too enthusiastically, clapping Minoth's back, which was yet covered by his undermost layer of armor, with a gusto that made the skin there feel like it was indeed bare, and like the prince was simultaneously far older and far younger than his scant twenty-four years.

"Stop trying to make this weird for me," Minoth had muttered with a special venom he reserved only for the singular member of this specific subclass of Tornan quasi-royalty, and Addam had been more or less oblivious and given a half-hearted "Aha...I humbly apologize."

Was there any appropriate onlooker's response to such an exchange? Jin was stone-faced as always, but Lora and Haze looked down, and Hugo looked away, and the kids had already forgotten the whole ordeal, and Brighid was surely squinting at him, and Aegaeon still wasn't paying attention, doing a dead man's float that bore a curiously close resemblance to his sleeping position of choice, though he didn't often exercise it. Maybe he was asleep...? He couldn't possibly drown, right?

Even if Aegaeon couldn't, Minoth could, in his own stew. Mythra shot him a glance that almost said "I get that," only it...didn't. It said something more like "You're gonna say that to all of us and then snap at him like that in front of everybody? Jeez louise, makes even me look good." Aegises were scary like that, it appeared.

Minoth shook his head and crouched down to busy himself with a scintillating horde of Dannagh Wetas that had been forced out of their daytime hideout among a pile of wet leaves and stones by the unusual amount of raucous humanoid activity. He'd feel lonely all he wanted, thank you very much, and certainly with regard to Mr. Origo there. The man wasn't his Driver! Leave it to him to try to supplant Minoth's good graces for a well-meaning remark and a boost to his confidence.

Huh. He was probably at it now, quietly telling Lora that, just like Mythra, Minoth would "come around eventually," and what a farce that was, because obviously he'd already done his coming around, almost immediately. Let him have his way about his own damn self. If they were a family, Addam was undoubtedly the father, and that made Minoth no less or more than a distant uncle, who certainly didn't need parenting - not like Mythra.

Minoth craned his neck around and made to study the Aegis like he'd been studying the large insects (only those he'd let crawl around over his hands, and he had no mind to touch Mythra even half that closely). Her back was turned, thankfully, and she'd submerged her calves in a pool to kick her feet back and forth aimlessly. Aimless, that's what she was. He was more directionless, but it was the same thing, in the end.

Addam was peering tiredly at both of them with a forlorn gaze, a twinfold look that indeed spoke to the same conclusion in each half: I'm in bloody well over my head, aren't I? Minoth pierced his own gaze down to the bottom of the pond in front of him and got an idea of the depth, then plunged in feet first. Like digging, wasn't it? He'd stay under for a while.

Yes, I'm aware that it is in fact Mythra who has those couple of lines during that campfire scene, but when reading them out from the datamine they seemed very Lora-like, and as I've somewhat established, Mythra and Minoth...not exactly friendly.

I also mashed the sceneries together here, but it's more meant to take place on the actual Verdant Fairylands, what with Aegaeon's geyser and the grassiness of it all. My chapter-by-chapter, scene-by-scene outline has locations in it, but it doesn't matter all too terribly much. The point is, out in nature where it's too pretty to get morbid but also let's contemplate, shall we?

The swimsuits, in case anyone is curious, are as follows:

- Volleyball Ace Lora (Something appropriately sporty, likely a skirt plus crop top with little water/beach sneakers.)
- Sandcastle Guardian Jin (He's wearing a little visor and boy oh boy does he not like it.)
- Vacation Maiden Haze (I don't have a specific design in mind, but any art of Haze wearing a swimsuit that's actually conceptualized and not just sexualized will do nicely.)
- Pro Surfer Addam (From this art, which is just absolutely delightful.)
- Radiant Beach Mythra (DLC costume from the main game, though Milton's not wrong about her standard outfit.)
- Sun & Sand Minoth (See above linked art; I LOVE that for him, even though realistically he ain't takin' his shirt off for no man nor monster.)
- Well-Deserved Rest Hugo (He's just wearing a rash guard and board shorts and he looks particularly youthful in them, of course.)
- Water Lily Brighid (DLC costume from the main game, and to quote Lora, "Elegant as ever, Brighid.")
- Valiant Baywatch Aegaeon (He has a towel over his shoulder and his katana sheath is now a rescue tube, the ones that are dull red and look to be made of similar stuff to gymnasium equipment.)

Milton & Mikhail don't get anything particularly interesting to wear - sorry, little dudes!

Chapter 12: Aisle of Plenty - "Still alone in o-Hell-o, see the deadly nightshade grow."

As before, you may have seen this chapter's scene posted on the archive separately some time ago, but where I didn't make mention of it before, I will now, because there is in fact a little something extra herein. Please enjoy, even if you're enjoying again!

The party spent fair through a week in the desolate Dannagh Desert, pacing themselves and their water intake. Well, it wasn't the absolute most desolate place imaginable, given even just the sheer beauty of it all (Turquos Plateau, anyone?), but still, with nary a trace of true greenery nor human vestige to be summarily spotted, the sand could stretch on and on nigh unrelentingly without so much as trying.

The resulting fatigue was such that one afternoon, in the greatest heat imaginable, when Minoth spied the telltale hump of buried treasure poking through the ground up a ways from the blessed shade of the Streamsand Corridor, to which they often circled back, counterintuitive as that may have been, not a one of them would trudge up there with him; he had to practically drag Addam by the myriad conveniently placed nonsensical armor plates.

Addam was grumpy, of course - or rather, not of course, but Minoth was the one person who could make him so, with a frightening level of consistency, and so it couldn't be helped.

"What's got you so excited about this supposed buried treasure of yours, anyway?" he groused, feeling almost doubly as grumpy just for the mere fact that Minoth had gotten him so out of sorts so quickly.

"I'm not excited so much as opportunistic. You learn a lot from salvagers here and there. You know they're even talking about making up a code, now? Fascinating stuff."

Re-righting his head from where he'd tilted it back to gaze up at the sun (don't ask why, he probably didn't know), Addam rejoined, reluctantly. "Is that so? Don't repeat it to me, if you don't mind."

Minoth nodded far too agreeably for the haze of the day. "Neither minding nor mattering. Got it. Don't you worry your pretty little head about it."

For all his bravado, Minoth didn't seem to actually have much point in bringing Addam along, as he swiftly set to digging the chest out himself with expert daggers. (Their flat blades helped how, exactly? It was a mystery to all but the most sardonic member of their group.) Addam? Why, he just stood back and watched.

It was an advantageous position: the Flesh Eater had wanted to keep his gloves on, it seemed, but even he needed to fall prey to the heat and strain eventually, so off came the gloves, followed by the jacket.

Very nice shoulders, very nice back, very nice arms, very nice...it almost rhymed, but Addam stopped his musings nonetheless. See, that was the trouble. He'd like nothing more than to just get along with Minoth like they'd used to do, only arguing when it got to truly serious matters and being perfectly companionable when it came to all the rest, but somehow that didn't seem to work anymore.

Was it the flirting? Ah, damn. It was probably the flirting. And speak of the digging devil...

"Listen, Prince, I know you're enjoying the view from back there," Minoth called back at him with truly annoying prescience, "but I'm only so strong. You gonna help me pull this out?"

"Oh, well, if you didn't ask, I'd never have thought you wanted help." It was only the truth, wasn't it? Very independent-minded, this Blade of his was. His? Well...maybe.

"Addam, Addam." Minoth was squinting up at him out of the very corner of his eye, despite the conciliatory bent, and goodness, his face looked very nice in this lighting, didn't it. "I always want you."

The words "Oh, shove off!" came to mind, but Addam only found himself beaming back. This was nice! This was nice.

It would have been nicer if Minoth hadn't just shrugged his assorted vestments back on, but you couldn't win them all, now could you? Together, they seized upon the trunk, grappling for the thoughtfully designed handles on either side. Addam dared to "accidentally" trace a finger across the back of Minoth's right hand, between and around the gold accents; Minoth grinned contentedly in grateful reception of the gesture thereof.

When they'd successfully heaved it out of its erstwhile resting place hole, the next order of business was, of course, the lock. Minoth studied it with a cagey eye, absently retightening his ponytail and cracking his neck as he thought. Oh, but they were perfectly well equipped for this as a party. One only needed to call on their resident locksmith, and so Addam said so, though more tepidly than was probably best for efficiency and team morale.

"Oh, don't you need-" "Nah, I've been watching Brighid."

Addam raised a silver eyebrow. "She lets you?"

"She lets me do many things," was Minoth's airy reply.

The arched eyebrow turned into just one comical aspect of an unnecessarily contorted, half-disgusted face. "You needn't make it sound so lewd."

"You debase her," Minoth drawled lowly, "more than her skill at lockpicking ever could."

"And you aggravate me more than a hundred Scorpox ever could." "Oh, likewise, my prince."

That was the way they conversed, the overwhelming majority of the time, in affectionate banter far too complicated for any outside observer to parse.

As it turned out, his mooched skill was more a bit of shifty eyeing here, a touch of toothpick inserted there, and a final decision to simply shoot the lock clean (only it was in fact a very messy affair) off. "Can't do it without Haze's keen eye," he explained dryly.

"Then why didn't you just get Haze?" Addam was more genuinely curious than indignant as he begged this question.

"Why, it would have spoiled our little moment together, Addam!" The arm laid about his shoulder was welcome, to be sure, and he found himself even leaning in to the other's infuriatingly leather-covered shoulder - that was the one caveat, because it was dreadfully unfair that Minoth didn't seem to be sweating a wit. Well, blame it on Blade physiology, he supposed.

The looping arm then made to make him forget all about that, pulling him in closer and resting head on top of head. If he wasn't damned sure it was decidedly not raining, Addam would have thought that a droplet had landed on the very tip of his nose when his eyes were closed for the briefest moment.

"You really shouldn't do that, you know." "Oh? How about don't tell me what to do?"

Addam pushed out of the impromptu embrace then. "I'm not trying to-- Well, how about I do tell you what to do? Open the damn crate, already. Ruin the moment, my foot..."

Rolling his eyes, Minoth retracted his own arm and used it, along with the other, to heave open the chest with far more flair than could ever be necessary for practically any endeavor. First he ran fingers around the very edges of the silver trim, then danced them over each flourish of filigree, picked away broken bits of lock, shuffled the angle of the box in the sand, put a thief's ear to the sloping lid, plied the handles again, flicked at a sudden smudge of dirt around the back...all while staring pointedly back at Addam.

Addam Origo thought himself a very patient man, he really did. He took every little quibble and tribulation that came to their group in stride and with a smile. He laughed at insults, cried at tender moments, maintained the very evenest of keels, or if not that then certainly a milieu that was genial and agreeable to all.

Even Mythra could hardly so much as try his patience anymore - chalk it up to both their newfound maturities, and it was a thing to be proud of. (Now she tried his most deep-seated fears, instead. Lovely - charming, even.)

This, however? This strip show of an archaeological dig? He swatted the entirety of his brachial musculature at Minoth's back, very nearly sending the cowboy tumbling head first into the still-shut container's lid. "Prince-!" His voice sounded, quite frankly, rather dangerous, but only for a second.

"Open it, damn you!" Then the danger, at least on a primal level, was gone, replaced with frightening speed by an electric grin. "Not until you let me pay you back for that."

"Minoth!" Privately, Addam grimaced at how weak his echo seemed in comparison. "You'll send me hurtling back down the slope!"

"Oh, poor prince, you want me to hold your hand so you don't?" Minoth didn't wait for an answer, immediately darting forward (he had turned around) to sneak another peck at Addam's nose. Preamble over, he spun back and flung open the chest, at last.

The top of the heap of...stuff inside teemed, much to Addam's chagrin, with a veritable smorgasbord of petite but deadly cobras, ever-menacing cicadas, and absolutely terrifying scorpions. Not that he knew their names, or breeds, or whichever. To him, of course, they just looked spooky and vaguely unidentifiable. Squirmy, was the word.

"Huh." "What's that?" Addam prompted tentatively, not sure he wanted to know.

"These are all indigenous to Gormott." What an odd thing to say. "Oh, how ever can you tell?" was his only outward expression of that thought, however.

"Simple," Minoth said in the selfsame fashion. "You just tell - like I told you."

"Minoth," Addam started dourly, "that's a cop-out. I'm not so perpetually dazzled by your knowledge that I'll just accept anything that comes out of your mouth, you know."

"But you are perpetually dazzled, then? In some extent, or other?"

They both sat back on their heels in quiet companionship, without looking at each other, and Addam replied, "It's very possible, but by who or what, I won't say."

With incredibly admirable facility, Minoth flashed a cocky eyebrow of his own at the prince. "Very well then, keep your secrets - and I'll keep mine, how's that?"

"Not very good. I still want to know how you know what native Gormott species look like offhand." Something stony came over Minoth's face. Oh, was it something he'd said?

"I've had a lot of time to go a lot of places, Prince. You know it's been just about the same two years since I've seen Amalthus since I last saw you, up until a week and a half ago?"

Addam looked down, introspective as much as guilty. "I wouldn't have done the math that way. I hadn't known you'd been so actively avoiding him."

"Heh. Yeah, I guess maybe I should've told you. If you hadn't spirited me away that day in the palace, I would've broken my little two-month streak. Lucky thing, lucky thing..." Lucky thing? And how committed had he been all the years preceding in campaigning for just such a thing, far less reliant on base chance and far more genuine?

They'd never talked about it, when he'd come back, not really. Too much to do, too close to Aletta where the militia needed him to ever truly get his old friend alone and hug him, maybe kiss him, say oh how I missed you and I'm so glad you're okay, you've come out to meet me and oh won't you stay?

Silly rhyme. An accident, of course. Maybe their meeting so recently had been an accident, too. Minoth was...well, he wasn't a liar, but he was very good at telling convenient truths. He'd heard rumors, sure, but that could have been a cover-up so that their stilted relationship wouldn't look quite so grim in front of the veritable masses that the other nine were in contrast to the slim, even tight-knit duo cast that had informed their bygone activities.

"Now, look, Minoth--" Minoth looked, and Addam swallowed down the thoughts. "How's about those bugs?"

"Ah, well." A complacent but knowing smile crept back over Minoth's face, and then the same upon Addam's. They'd shelve it for now.

"Here we have Everyman Cicadas," he pointed at some small, wrinkly fellows with long, lacy wings, all buzzing threateningly, "the slithering ones are Motley Cobras," and look how motley, their tongues a-viping, "and those are Gregarious Scorpions." The stingers were, ah, particularly potent on those, it looked like. Yeesh...no thanks.

Somehow, things got terminally worse for Addam just then. The Flesh Eater had plucked up a scorpion by the tail and was inviting it without apprehension to crawl up into his bare hand. And was he...smiling at the cicadas? "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Only if you're a coward, and with these not even. The snakes are so friendly even our young Hugo couldn't be afraid of them."

"I rather think he still would be," Addam said, crossing his arms and leaning far, far back. "He, unlike you, has still got some sense after all these years."

Said senseless man was petting a cobra now, miniature though it was. "You'd eat a centipede if I dared you, wouldn't you - in fact, I'll bet you wouldn't even need an incentive."

Unlucky prince: Minoth leaned back as well to join him, bugs amass and all. "I wouldn't need one, sure, but if I could get you to give me one...? Absolutely."

"You fascinate me." Minoth barked a laugh. "I know." Otherwise unbothered, he turned back to the chest, handily removed the remainder of the many-legged fauna with surprising delicacy, and resumed rummaging through it.

"Battery Chip, that's for me, Auto-Balancer, that's for you, creepy old doll, that's for Aegaeon..."

Addam ignored (that is to say, firmly internalized) his mental affront at the quickfire assumption that it was he who would need balance-enhancing gear, instead focusing on the mentioned Core Chip.

"You're not going to ask if anyone else needs it first? Or even wants it?"

Minoth shrugged, again unbothered. "Why should I? Finders keepers, right?"

Titan's foot, that was it. He was always perpetually unbothered - except when he was giving some long diatribe about his current work. In order to get an advantage, one needed to counter the blow with something equally poetic (well, more cryptic and useless, really).

"Finders keepers...like I found you?"

"Sure, close enough," Minoth returned slowly. "Oh, would you look at that, I dropped something behind the lid, would you pick it up for me?" His tone was entirely too conversational for his request to be genuine, but Addam obliged anyway, against his better judgement.

Sure enough, the only thing to be found underneath the cocked lid of the chest was a pair of rough, cracked lips and the hands to match.

"You're very quick on the punch, you know that?"

When Minoth had done kissing him and carding his fingers indulgently through his hair, he responded to Addam's quip with a roguish smile. "I have to be, don't I? If I want you."

"Me?" "Well, you know." His shrug was insufferably handsome. "Finders keepers, and all that..."

They reemerged from behind the chest, and still no one was watching. Good. No cover blown. That is, until...

"YOU BETTER NOT HAVE EATEN ANY OF THOSE INSECTS BEFORE YOU KISSED ME, MINOTH!" Many a head from down below swiveled towards the source of the sound, but it looked like they hadn't really made it out completely.

Minoth sighed. "Addam, you really don't do any credit to our public decency."

It was a tie between crossed arms, pursed lips, and scoffed breath for what made the prince appear most irritated. "What, and you're going to kiss me again to shut me up, bugs on your lips and all?"

The cowboy grinned audaciously, prize won. "If you insist - anything for you, my prince."

I did a little bit of research to accurately set up the contents of the treasure chest, but not super-duper-crazy much. In general, we just have to pretend that Torna is a wee bit more expansive than we get to physically walk through in the game, too, I find.

The Dannagh Region and my friend's art own my entire ass.

Chapter 13: Firth of Fifth - "The path is clear, though no eyes can see, the course laid down long before."

I very much wish the devs had leaned harder into Minoth being Afro-Latino - and then why, you may ask, am I not leaning harder into it? Quite simply, because I am not Afro-Latino, or Black, or Roma, or possessing of any other identity that he could be great representation of, so I'm not sure it's my place to say. Instead, I'll just present the concept for your consideration.

There's something evil in here. Something very evil that I finally decided to go full-throttle on, and boy oh boy...boy oh boy. I'm sorry in advance.

"I'm happy to rely on you, Master Minoth!"

The cheerful quip grated on him long after the battle, short though it may have been, was over. It was like insult-salted-injury, having to ruminate darkly on his companions' generous words, and sweet young Haze's at that.

"Haze, mind sitting by me? Gotta ask you something." Evening time, and the fire crackling, camp homey as a cheering enhancement of the desert all around.

"Sure thing, Master Minoth. Is there a story you're working on? I'd love to hear it!" Minoth scowled despite himself as she trotted over to accept his invitation.

"I suppose it's rather like the gripe our beloved prince and I have when I use his title," he mused. "Oh, but he must know it's sarcastic as all hell. I don't even have a continental affiliation, after all."

Haze, by this time seated on the adjacent log, was silent and quizzical, a combination uncharacteristic for her. He cut to the chase.

"Why do you call me 'Master', Haze?" Architect, he hated even speaking the word in such a context.

If she ever put a second or third thought to it - and he really thought that she must have, because none of them were that blithe, not even she - she didn't show it, offering only: "Why, it's simply because I respect you! You've seen much of the world, and clearly have consorted with many famous Drivers."

Minoth sighed, tched. "You well know I'm literarily-versed, so I won't pretend not to understand the nuances. Lora is your Driver, but Jin is your partner Blade. A true lady to you, and then one rather like a brother, perhaps. Hugo's an emperor, Addam's titled in his own right, sure. Aegaeon and Brighid are venerated..."

Here he paused. "You see what I'm getting at? I hate to call them servants, Haze, even where with a human I would. 'Servants of the Empire'; it sounds aright, and noble to boot. But casting Blades as servants to humans...it downright smacks of Amalthus and his ilkish influence." Haze's eyes became fierce at the passing mention. Let's...get back on track.

"Of course, then there's Mythra. You call her Lady Mythra when you've got the presence of mind, but it's more natural for you not to say it - and I don't think she's all that attached to a title anyway. Our cast may be small, but it's yet storied. I've gotta say...it gives me a lot to work with."

He waved a gloved hand. "Eh, doesn't matter. We're equals, Haze. If you call me 'Master' because I'm part human, well, not least does it do nothing to counter the rankling of my lowlife status. But more than that, it undermines the bonds we care so much to build with one another. These bonds weave the fabric of our lives, save them in battle and heal them in rest. If we work together, we work as partners, comrades. I'm no one's master. None but my own."

Minoth then realized that his incessant monologuing had pulled him out of concentration on his ever-captive audience. He uncurled his fist from where it had come stuck propped beneath his chin and crossed his arms over his chest, tilting his head to look over at Haze. And, at this time he forwent a "What say you?"; she could tell the pace of the moment, needed no direction.

Having gathered her thoughts, Haze replied, "I think I certainly agree with that, Ma- um, yes, that makes sense. I would never want to be bonded with a Driver who didn't respect me as a person, and only used me for my power, even though I've never known another besides Lady Lora."

Hand back under chin, Minoth struck at the thought. "Lora may be an earthside angel, but she's not one for high society." Haze giggled agreement, and the Flesh Eater thought then that he should count two up in that heavenly regiment.

"Regardless," and here she shored up her seriosity, "I just can't help but feel more proper addressing others as Master or Lady. Could it be that that's just my nature, what was formed in me when I awoke?"

Oh, making it preternatural now. That's...interesting. Because then what if you've got to respect, even kowtow to, someone who's a fucking asshole? Someone like Amalthus? "That's certainly possible. Though creating characters and stories are my domain, this I won't pretend to know."

Haze's final words were confident, warmed and whisking through her topic. "After all, my closest companion has always been Lady Lora, and I can't even call her by her name alone."

Finally breaking the pensive, morally pregnant mood, Minoth laughed out loud. "Hah! Now, I'm not saying we'll all have tea parties and braid each other's hair, but that's a start! That's a start."

To his surprise (and maybe even impending chagrin), Haze's eyes lit up, and she held up both fists in anticipation. "Oh, but could we, Master Minoth? Lady Lora's hair isn't thick enough for any fancy braids, and Jin won't let me touch his, though his seems awfully fine in texture anyway. I'm afraid to ask Lady Brighid, even if her hair wasn't on fire, and Mythra is...well, Mythra. Yours looks very soft - if you don't mind my saying! Could we please?"

As her benign tirade went on, Minoth would have expected Haze to become increasingly timid, but such was the excitement triggered by the prospect - he could tell that saying no would lead to more the semblance of puppy eyes than kicked dog.

And, as luck would have it, or again perhaps as it wouldn't, there was the meddling prince leaning in with eyebrow jauntily quirked. Minoth knew he probably looked more taken aback than was fitting with the cool façade he liked to present, but after all, hadn't he himself suggested, even propagated, the humanizing arc that was to be these giddy cosmetological affairs?

"We'll work on it, Haze. For now, I'll just...wrap my arm around your shoulder, if that's okay." A slightly out-of-character choice, but a warm one - that's a good way to err.

She smiled brightly, ignoring the tepid approach and moving the proffered arm out of the way to nestle beneath it against his side. "Titles I may not be able to grapple with, but your ether energy is much warmer than Jin's, and I hate being cold!"

Well, that's only the human blood, he thought despondently, but after shifting uncomfortably for a few brief seconds, Minoth found himself drawing in the reach of his arm in reciprocation. "Careful now Haze, you'll be breaking down all my boundaries."

Addam chuckled from a few paces back. "Well, Minoth, I can't quite decide whether to say I always or never knew you were such a cuddly teddy bear."

"This bear'll tackle you, clown prince." "Really? That sounds rather cozy - the more the merrier!"

They advanced upon the capital in short order, though for some unknown reason were forced to skirt the throughway bridge and take a side route through the residential and commercial districts. What a trip - the glassmaker's stall was still there, and many of the same perfumes were arranged on that same bottom rack that had so intrigued Flora once upon a time. Minoth had never walked so openly through these streets, however, and certainly never in such a large group. It was an odd feeling, but not altogether a bad one.

The irritating thing about his whole hangup on attending the king's audience really was that Amalthus himself was going to be there. Not the presence as threatened him, but the larger implications. If their purpose was to inform the Tornan royals of Malos's attack, never mind mounting a defense, then why had Amalthus even bothered coming? Did he feel guilt, perhaps? Well...if so, good for him, regardless of the redundance. He deserved it for all the same he made his Blade feel waiting out front, just like he'd said. And, that wasn't all Minoth said, when the party emerged once more, thankfully unscathed.

"What, you got asthma or something?" he'd asked as he strolled back towards them, and thought it supremely funny of himself to boot. After all, he'd had just about enough of Lora's flimsy little excuses about "not being able to breathe in formal situations." Stupid, is what it was.

You lived in the wilds of the borderlands for seventeen years, and you couldn't stomach one single audience with the king of your nation, your home and country, when you fell in so easily with his son? Come on. Try living constantly in and out of the worst of it for eleven years, maybe then you could complain.

Oh, and that wasn't all, because then she had the nerve to call him selfish! He, the lone Flesh Eater who didn't have a single stake in the whole affair, and he hadn't even complained about it, just said "I'll stay back, out of your way," and that was that. In that moment, in fact, he was pretty glad of Addam's promised defense - sure shut her up quick. Oh, Lora had her merits, to be sure, and the sustained goodness of her Blades wasn't something she deserved no credit for, but it took a little more than just having good intentions to carry the day.

Up there inside the conference room before the balcony, meanwhile, was a whole mess of un-good intentions. Khanoro, Zettar, and Amalthus, he knew, plus other assorted dignitaries, the Tornan equivalents of Quaestors, or Magisters, or whichever. Slugs almost definitionally, the lot of them. The king? The king was alright, probably, though it stood to reason that if the ever-sociable Addam had never so much as sidewise proposed introducing the two of them, it wasn't all rosy in the golden country.

Neither was it so at that present moment in the courtyard gardens, apparently. After a bland exchange of reasons, apologies, hypotheses and determinations, Addam pulled him briskly aside by the arm guard. Oh boy, this again.

"Minoth, I know I've asked you before, rather even time and again, but if it was so important for you not to be near Amalthus, really and truly, why on the gods' green earth didn't you tell me?"

Minoth shrugged off the unwanted grip. "I did tell you. I told you I'm a coward."

"Minoth." The hand was back, and one on the other arm, too. "If there's anyone I know who's not a coward, it's you."

"You sure about that one, Prince?" Lora's not wanting to be around people of authority, or whatever that was, wasn't cowardice, only childishness, jejune superficiality. He, Minoth, was well an adult and well of the stature not to be intimidated by the fucking goonie lizard man.

Addam seemed to have caught some of those brainwaves, but not all of them. "Alright, fine. There are nine- no, eleven of us here, and not a one of us is a coward, excepting perhaps me."

"Couching it ain't gonna help, my prince." And neither would self-flagellation, because even Minoth didn't indulge in that exercise as a defensive distraction technique, only on the plain-out offensive where it suited the truth he wanted to speak.

"Then what, pray tell, will?" Annoyance and affront edged to careful pleading in the prince's eyes.

"Not being a coward - and all your precious years-amassed questions won't do shit towards that end." Minoth jerked the arm away once more to emphasize the expletive as he spoke, bracing the crucial grommets of the armor piece with his other hand.

Above them, Zettar made several furious pleas to fall on Khanoro's long-suffering ears. "My brother- or rather, my lord, why enfeoff Heblin to Addam? What has he done to deserve it, whether by lineage or by deed?"

Moving not a muscle in face, neck, or frame, the king studied his brother with inmitable patience. "Need I repeat what I so often ask of you, Zettar?"

"I-- Brother! See what lowlifes he travels with, even now! Yet another brutish faction of his motive army!"

"Ah, no." King and High Prince alike swiveled around in their stances, Zettar with wide, owlish eyes, and Khanoro with bleak curiosity. They had, of course, more or less forgotten that Amalthus yet remained.

"I wouldn't say 'lowlife'. That descriptor is still rather too high and imprecise for such a being."

"You know him?" Zettar questioned indignantly. "Quaestor, you defile your own reputation, I rather think."

Amalthus, as ever, was ready to deflect. "That's neither here nor there. I merely wished to note my surprise that, indeed, Addam should travel in such company, after all this time."

Before further clarification could be requested, in either case, both tense tête-à-têtes were summarily interrupted by destruction raining down from the sky, not to say the heavens: Malos, complete with myriad Artifices. He'd arrived right on time - why, it was even fairly theatrical of him. Couldn't be Amalthus's inborn and outgested flair, surely.

When Addam finally faced off against Malos, he somehow said so casually and assuredly all the things that Minoth felt he himself most wanted to say to the first Aegis. Addam didn't seem afraid, not in the least, because he had the absolution of Malos, bad bad bad evil, directly before him, not guiding but goading him on. His players at backup in the fight were Light and Dark themselves, justice seekers if they shouldn't be the very truth that Lora had standing behind her.

"Malos, the all-knowing!" Because what did Malos know? His appearance was almost comical: the huge shoulders and chest; the literally tiny waist, not even by any comparison; the bewitchingly ornate sword so terrible in its devastatingly manifest power; the hair hiked up so peaking high as if he really needed to be any taller. Tall, dark, and handsome, scarily intelligent, with just a dash, say a pinch, then dump in the entire canister of absolutely bugfuck shrunken-pupil insane. And he didn't know anything except seek and destroy, because apparently not only did they deserve it, but they wanted it.

The scorning words he gave the first to oppose him were ridiculous: Addam the bastard child not knowing the consequences of his own conception and continued existence, Malos whose father seemed tremendously uncaring and detached for all how he'd sent his children unceremoniously down to Alrest being the one who did. Their prince, nay all of them, being told that they didn't understand what as humans they were. Even if you left Hugo aside for his so lofty placement in the figuring of things, Lora and Addam were the very pictures of buoyant humanity, and they were always looking inward.

Minoth stood anchor-firm by as Addam called for Mythra's sword, as she tossed it with perfect aim and goal, and he was proud of them for standing together. Not just because it made him so proud even to be one of Addam's merry men at all, but because he saw her working to achieve what they knew was possible, and she hadn't given up - if it had been him, he might have. One might even say that he had.

"This is what humans and Blades can do together!" Mythra cried out, and conscious context joined subconscious stream. He hadn't-- He hadn't thrown that away, had he? No, he'd been the one that was thrown away, and circling back up now had...yeah, it had started to fill the void. As Mythra finished her brutal spar and leapt back to stand between them, the framing would have been practically poetic: Minoth on one side, Addam on the other, because she was starting not to need him to bind her in. Truly, she was a force to be reckoned with in her own right, because the greatest strength comes from knowing your breaking point, and those unpeaked of your allies.

They rushed on her brother, her partner, once again, ringed in what seemed like infallible unity. Each team made their pounce and helped each other follow up, whether element by element - Brighid to Aegaeon - or break by topple - Lora to Jin. For his part, Minoth had vaulted up with knees tucked, trying to press the height advantage to its outer, rather upper, limits, but Malos was too quick, too broad, and he had no choice but to flip back down without successfully waged martial effect. The effort hurt his knees almost as much as the subsequent tremor wave of darkness did, and his footing juddered, faltered, as the Aegis monologued on.

They were all left weak, after that. Aegaeon clutched his side, maybe stemming an imminent leak; Brighid bent up awkwardly, painfully, as her back refused to return to its proper arch; Hugo wobbled where he stood, because his poor legs were too young for the relentless bombast of his life as it had led thus far. The Ardainian group, ever staunch, was the predominance of what Minoth could see, but he could feel everyone else gasping heaving breaths behind and around him.

Then, Malos flew off for the seal, leaving them with more Gargoyles to contend with. Now normal, run-of-the-mill fighting, with no psychological component to weather. Azurda burst down from the skies, Addam and Lora left with primary Blades to hand, and Minoth and Haze leaned against each other, suddenly winded (discard the elemental irony, if you will). The tired looks they shared were borne, for the most part, of a single sentiment: "I never could have expected this." One drew on wildest nightmarish dreams, the other perhaps could have seen it coming. Maybe next time they'd know.

Move over Klauhelm, hot new crackship just dropped: Zettamalthus, the ultimate epic love story full of political intrigue and blatant gold-digging, probably. Only valid pope ship, though, really.

Glimmers here of the far superior universe in which Team Addam is thick as thieves the whole way through no questions asked, my absolute beloved that I gave up in favor of angst. Sorry (mostly to myself, I suppose)!

Chapter 14: Deep in the Motherlode - "You're rolling your days right on into the night, the head of the line is going way out of sight."

The stick-together families are happier by far
Than the brothers and the sisters who take separate highways are.
The gladdest people living are the wholesome folks who make
A circle at the fireside that no power but death can break.

-- Edgar Guest, "The Stick-Together Families"

True to his expressed desire and conviction, Minoth stood firm behind Lora at her knighting ceremony. Once more, of course, he noted how Jin attended at his Driver's side while Haze was relegated to a similar position as Mythra and the boys. At least he himself was standing opposite to Addam to complete the circle - perhaps farthest away from Amalthus and Zettar, but after all in fine view to stare them down rather than face the other way.

Not that he was staring at their respective counterpart middling-noble adversaries much, anyway. Not when Addam was right there, smile radiant and eyes golden in the sun. Come to think of it, why did he look so especially princelike today, so unavoidably exemplary in sight and sound? It couldn't have been the magnanimous act, because he hadn't done anything - it was only Khanoro's enamoration with Lora's...noble kickboxing that had led them to this point.

Minoth was jerked out of his blissful staring reverie by the woman of the hour's bright proclamation: "Okay, let's make some memories!" He often found that the best way to deal with a character you weren't sure how to incorporate was simply to stick them right into the mix, so with that in mind he offered his arm to the newly officiated lady knight, and away they went. Haze immediately came up on his other side to take purchase on his now-formerly-free elbow - eh, what the hell? Why not?

Too soon, Minoth realized that the Wind Blade's point in arresting part of his crucial autonomy was to guide them all up to the water tower and into the rooftop courtyard thereabouts located. That was why not: she was making good on her intent to get him acclimated and assimilated, towards the goal of braiding his hair, and then probably painting his nails or plucking his eyebrows or whatever else into the mix.

He cast furtively around for Addam, still so like a lighthouse even in the middle of the day, but the prince seemed determined to linger behind with Hugo and Aegaeon - the three of them were well safe from any dubiously meritorious makeup meddlings, because the first two had short hair, and the latter had no rivuleting tresses to speak of at all, only those ever-confounding tubes.

When they had reached their destination, Minoth pulled out a notebook in a hurry, moseyed into a corner wherein he chose a seat on a handy barrel, and set quill to paper without a single opening letter in mind. Haze tilted her chin up at him and frowned; "Gotta make some notes on what I'll write about your lady there, you know." If she objected to him doing that, well, then he was all out of ideas and his precious boundaries truly were far and away broken down.

Ah, but if they weren't completely broken, then there were hairline cracks that served well enough, because she trotted over to the same corner, shoved a barrel behind his with a mighty exhalation, and climbed on top, all the while displaying truly admirable grace.

"Master Addam's cooking contest is today, you know." Oh, she was crafty, this one, like a winsomely whipping breeze. Zephyr, the word was, to connote some of the mischievousness that she undoubtedly displayed. (Lora had been too antsy for them to make an event of it ahead of the proceedings of this morning, so Haze here was on the ball, even opportunistic.)

He tried to be crafty, or at the very least sarcastic, right back. "Oh, so it is. And I've got to look my best?" "Absolutely!"

Nothing to do but sigh. "Haze, I'm not even in the damn thing." By this point, she was busy pulling out his hair tie, but otherwise would most likely have tapped finger to lips to indicate consideration, whether feigned or not.

Good thing she hadn't, because just then it really would have been a lie. "Master Addam and Lady Mythra both play integral parts in the proceedings. Therefore, you must want to support them!" she exclaimed triumphantly, satisfied with her conclusion.

"Haze..." Minoth closed the notebook, not with a snap but slowly, crossing his arms and leaning his head back to where her hands waited so patiently. He didn't tilt his eyes up to meet hers, though. That would have been too much. "You and Lora and Jin...we're not like that. We're not a family." Granted, they weren't, in fact, the only team without a kid attached, but leave that aside, noble director, ignore the parallel, please.

Haze giggled. Where before Minoth might have been amused, even endeared, now he was just annoyed. "What?"

"I don't believe you!" she said gleefully, punctuating her statement with a yank on a side section of hair that included the front piece she'd insistently raked back. "Oh, and your hair is very soft - something else I was right about!"

He didn't want to look at the mess of discomposure it must have presented at that moment. Squinting across the courtyard out of one reluctant eye, Minoth caught Addam's gaze, then Mythra's. Addam was smiling, even beaming, like he'd been truly heartened by the whole affair. Mythra, fresh off of a snooty snap at Mikhail, to whose defense Milton had immediately rushed, almost looked like she was smirking - laughing at his pain! He closed both eyes then, and grimaced. Better not to know.

"Getting up to anything good, Haze?" Lora. Her gregariousness made somewhat of a resemblance to Addam, but she had a greater capacity for tending towards no-nonsense that Minoth so dearly appreciated. He was going to have to hedge careful bets about what her sudden input meant now, though.

Haze just hummed agreeably, pulling section after section into place. He could tell she wasn't doing anything complicated, so maybe it was possible after all to hope that he wouldn't look like an absolute idiot when she had done.

"Oh, careful - you dropped a piece there. Here, I'll get it for you. Gosh, it's just like making my charms, isn't it, weaving things together."

"Right? I'm so glad Master Minoth is letting us do this!" And then Lora's fingers were there on his scalp as well, almost cavalier as they made the promised assisting motion.

What. The actual. Fuck. Minoth's boots made a mightily vicious crack as they slammed down on the courtyard's stone and propelled him upwards. He thrust an impatient hand back down in Haze's direction, and she quietly, obediently placed the hair tie into his waiting palm. Around his wrist, it would have gone, if it ever left his head, but it didn't, and so he didn't often need to bother with stretching it around or underneath his gloves.

"Aegaeon, I'll see you later," he said to no one in particular, despite the address. Offstage now, exit through the very curtain with hair snapping behind him just the same, jump down into the water if it wouldn't have made him look like a wet rat. The walls were made of steel and ether again now, twofold and double, and wasn't nobody getting around them.

"You ever bring girls up here, Addam?"

He and Minoth were in the prince's bedroom at Aureus once again, since Addam hadn't seen the need to drag Mythra along when she could be helping Lora in their general quest to brighten up the city in the wake of the destruction. He was rummaging in a chest for a particular charm an old woman had described to them, one that used to be sold in the markets but hadn't been available for quite some time. The general line of thought was probably that Lora would use the artifacted version as a model, but they all knew that if he had to, or even if he didn't, the prince would offer up his own belongings without hesitation.

"Hmm? No, never have. Oh, well except for the few times Flora and I watched the sunrise together from the balcony."

Minoth smirked, the truth he suspected out. "Oh? Pretty saucy stuff, Prince." Addam finally turned to look at his companion.

"What do you mean? Oh-- No, she stayed in a guest room, of course. It's you with the dirty mind!" he teased, giving a friendly slap to the Flesh Eater's forearm. The arm's owner shuffled his feet.

"In that case, this feels a little like hallowed ground. Kinda weird to invite people into your childhood bedroom, isn't it? After all."

Addam had returned to the search, and gave moderate reciprocated conversation over his shoulder. "I wouldn't say so. Not for a childhood friend - Hugo's been here many a time, for instance."

This called for more shuffling. Minoth crossed his arms tighter and rolled his shoulders. Was he a childhood friend, really? He probably looked at least thirty years old, in human terms, and had for a fair few years besides that. He didn't come from the most wholesome stock, either. Not really fit to be around this motley troupe of youths.

His discomfort and overthinking were soon interrupted, however, by a shout from across the room.

"Ah, got it!" The prince turned around and proudly displayed a ratty mass of yarn, petals, and stones.

"That's it?" Minoth asked incredulously. He poked at the charm, and it threatened to disintegrate onto the cold tile floor, or else get lost among the misshapen tufts of a plush, if equally old, golden rug.

Addam's grin dimmed somewhat. "Well, I suppose it's not quite presentable, but Lora can always fashion up a new one. What's this, Cotton Branch and Ocean Eye, maybe some Angel's Sage? And a Fancy Seam, that I recognize."

He looked back up at Minoth. "Well go on, name it!" "Me?" "Of course, you're our resident wordsmith!"

He couldn't really deny that. Casting eyes upward in thought, Minoth soon found himself gazing around the warm little room. He supposed he had been rather a kid, then.

"We'll call it the Charm of Antiquity," he pronounced evenly, at last.

"Lovely. I'm sure Lora will appreciate that, Minoth." Addam tucked the fraying charm away, underneath the folds of the cloth wrapped around his waist, with due reverence.

"You were thinking about our antiquity, weren't you? Halcyon days and all, hmm?" Minoth didn't answer. "I'm certainly not glad of the circumstances, but it's good I was able to wrest you away from your Driver at all. I think of that day whenever I walk these halls. Not much else of note that ever happened to me here, I suppose."

The prince laid a hand on the Flesh Eater's broad shoulder, causing and catching a shudder in stride. "Are you alright, now?" Minoth nodded slowly, breathing a laugh. "I'm okay, my prince. You make sure of it."

"I intend to!" Addam had missed the nuance of tense, but no matter. They made eye contact for a long second, and then Addam's eyes drifted down. They snapped back up just as fast, but Minoth hadn't missed the lapse.

"Did you want something, Addam?" he asked cheekily. "Mhm." The response wouldn't have seemed out of place if it hadn't preceded a kiss, but that it had, and Minoth made sure to kiss back. A weird way to say thanks, but it was satisfying nonetheless.

When they broke apart, Addam's cheeks were flushed, and Minoth felt heat rising in his as well. "That was flashy as hell. Do that again, would you?"

During their stay in Auresco, they made a replacement for camp base in the Spefan Inn (Addam was none too eager to suggest to his father, and by extension his uncle, that they all stay in the palace), compressing into fewer rooms than usual to avoid putting the abundance of other customers out. As there were eleven of them, effectively ten given Milton and Mikhail's statures, the girls plus Jin occupied one room, the guys another.

Hugo somehow convinced Aegaeon to take a bed like the rest of them, wholly sheltered as they were from native attacks, and Haze and Lora made sure to place themselves in between Brighid and Mythra, sacrificing their own unbotheredness for the prevention of physical altercations. With four beds in a line and one lengthwise along the wall next to a dresser, Jin had a good place to keep respectful distance.

But enough about the sleeping configuration! Well, were it only true...

"Mythra?" Milton's voice came floating through the door, for once timid and attempting to respect her boundaries. She was generally a light sleeper, even when not sleepwalking.

"What?" was the flat reply. "I...need your help." "With what?" still deadpan.

"Mythra, get your lazy behind out of the bed and go talk to the boy instead of making us all listen to your indolence," Brighid cut in, as if speaking through her state of unwakefulness solely to deliver this message. Then again, with those eyes...? Perhaps it was never possible to tell for sure.

A groan, then seemingly intentionally clodding feet moving towards the door before it opened. "What?" she repeated.

"Addam's snoring." Mythra looked about to blow. "That's it?! You got me up for nothing?" Milton crossed his arms.

"Mik and I can't sleep at all. I'd have expected you to be more sympathetic." By this time, Mikhail had indeed padded out into the hall and was rubbing his eyes, in a futile attempt to force them to droop shut out of exhaustion. "Can't get quiet for a second," he muttered.

"Why can't you just do what we normally do?" Milton shook his head and ushered her into the adjacent room.

"...oh."

A sleeping Minoth was sprawled on top of Addam, ass up and ponytail fairly disheveled, what with the prince's fingers being tangled up underneath the tie. He had abandoned his post at the far bed in favor of Addam's, the one on the end, and Hugo (on his back like a plank) and Aegaeon (just the opposite, faceplanted) were as yet unbothered, so the boys didn't have a better option than their current position in the bed next to that from which the snoring emanated.

In the back of her head (and she had a mind to shove it much, much farther back if she could), Mythra began to piece together why Addam always seemed to walk slower when they approached a ladder, the way in which he did so somehow also prohibiting her from passing in front of him and thus between him and Minoth. His left hand had fallen away, off the far side of the bed, and she didn't need Foresight working in reverse to tell where it had most recently been resting.

"Agh! Wha- Mythra!" She had walked up and sparked a small burst of light particles at the exposed ether deposits on the Flesh Eater's back.

"Your Prince Charming is snoring and the twerps can't sleep." His jaw worked. "Well. This is embarrassing."

Embarrassed or not, Minoth rolled off of Addam and sat in between his legs, hastily pulling down his hair and recoiffing it.

Taking the opportunity to shut Addam's mouth without constricting his breathing, Milton gently eased the prince's jaw closed, cutting off the incessant snoring noises. He and Mikhail then retired to their bed and pulled the blanket all the way up to shut out any possible forthcoming spat between Addam's Blades.

Unfortunately for them, Minoth was still gazing longingly at Addam's bare chest.

"Gross," Mythra offered. "I couldn't think of anything less," he returned simply.

"That's...not what I meant." Even more gross, she thought. "Isn't he, like, married or something?"

Minoth nodded slowly. "He is. But she knows he's as devoted to her as he is to his people, no matter how big his heart. That's what makes it difficult. Admiration, adoration, adulation...they're not the same as support."

He stopped to gauge her reaction, but got nothing. "Still, they're better than giving him nothing to grasp at all," he finished pointedly.

Finally tiring of the odd conversation, Mythra turned to leave, giving only a noncommittal "Whatever. Don't do anything weird."

The Flesh Eater shook his head and replaced his own erstwhile warmth with a blanket. Before slipping back away into the dark corner from whence he had come, he placed a soft kiss underneath the hair covering the juncture between Addam's cheek and right ear.

"I can only hope to be strong enough to catch you when you falter, my prince."

Lora's knighting ceremony cutscene is just another blatant example of Monolith Soft being so damn proud of this beautiful character model they made that they stuck him in as visual focal cue everywhere they can. There is no reason on earth to pan around the whole group like that and stop on a half shot of Minoth's back - but thanks, I guess? (Yes, thanks!)

The whole sleepover-esque scene (vestiges of one, anyway) was given its final impetus to actually be created by MachineryField's fic of the same nature - or at least, it was until I remembered that my strong suit is making Minoth get angsty and a little pathetic. Anyway! I somewhat lack the fortitude to get into his longer works, which is just a shame on me, but definitely check out his many many fantastic one-shots. Read them!!

I believe that Mythra can, in fact, have a little crush on Minoth, and yes, as a treat, as here and here by quartzguts, but for this story...she just doesn't. This may be important to varying degrees later.

And, just to clog up this chapter's notes even more, it makes me a tiny bit disgruntled that Jin is the only one who doesn't have some wayward appendage-like feature to cement his Bladeness like the rest of them have. He gets it later, I know, but still: Brighid has her hair, Aegaeon has his tubes, Mythra has her little tail-flag-banner-things, Minoth has his little SATA cables, and Haze has her little halo. Jin...they must have planned That Thing for him early on, huh? No, no, it's just because he's a Nomura design and the rest are Saito, Kozaki, or unnamed Monolith Soft staff. Extra belts? Nah, I'll take random unnecessary debatably attached protuberances any day.

Chapter 15: Get 'Em Out By Friday - "Work can be rewarding when a flash of intuition is a gift that helps you excel!"

Youth has no choice in the matter of heart. It's something out of chaos...and therein lies the rub. Life is an ongoing situation. We are the product of our experiences. Own your mistakes, for it's better late than never. Really, you can say anything, but try to do what's right. You can get there, you can always be better. It all works itself out in the end.

After Malos's attack on Auresco, Lora began performing her sworn duty to Torna with gusto as the party roamed the streets of the capital looking for lost souls to help set aright. When they turned their attention to Mireille, a sweet old woman who frequented Pischator Bridge for the convenient view it afforded to the lotus pond, the city had been more or less healed to what was, in all honesty, a sufficient level, but nevertheless, she and they both were glad of their visit.

"What luck, a group of youngsters! I was just looking for someone to run an errand for me. I'm dying, you know. The doctor says the end is near... Oh, don't be sad! At my age, death is a peaceful prospect. I've seen so many of my friends turn off already...now, it's my turn. That's all there is to it. All souls will be saved in the end. That's what the teachings of the Praetor say and that's what I believe."

They all stared rather blankly, uncomfortably, at the old woman throughout her exposition, Minoth most of all. "...erm, where was I? Ah yes. My one regret is a promise I once made to a friend that I haven't kept. I promised to make a vase, but I don't have the materials for it. Would you know where to find them for me?"

A lightly shaking hand emerged to give the vague idea of ticking items. "Here's what I need: two sprigs of Spiral Mistletoe, four chunks of Silverwing Quartz, and four spades of Eternity Loam. That's it! If you happen to find some on your travels and feel like sharing, I'd be most grateful."

She put up a final finger just as they turned to go. "Oh, about that Eternity Loam. I seem to remember that you could harvest it in the Loftin Nature Preserve. These days it's very valuable, so I feel like maybe there isn't so much of it left. Still, it may be worth a look... No need to go out of your way to get it all, but, like I said, I'd be grateful for any help you can offer. I reckon my friend's forgotten all about this, heh heh...but a promise is a promise and I want to keep it."

Once they had moseyed an appreciable distance away from Mireille, ideas began to pool about where to go for this or that, since they did in fact not have any of the requested materials on hand, but certainly weren't going to not go out of their way to get them.

"I remember seeing a lode of Silverwing Quartz in Dannagh Desert, just to one side of the campsite near the Braying Canyon," Jin offered.

Haze put a finger to her lips in thought. "I'm not sure, but I think we should be able to find Spiral Mistletoe in the nature preserve as well, near where we'll have to look for the Eternity Loam."

Sure enough, when they returned the next day, having stacked up a handful of other requests alongside this one so as to streamline their travel, the petite potter's face was practically glowing beneath the wrinkles and cloche. "Oh, you've found the materials for me! How terribly kind of you. Now I can finally fulfill that old promise."

"Will you be okay?" Lora prompted, ever the humanist realist. "Is there anything else we can help with?"

Mireille waved a spotted hand in front of her face; it was curled just as much in rheumatism as it was in gesture. "No, no, young lady, I'm quite alright. Thank you for asking. I could never face him again if I broke that promise...what would he think of me?"

Addam cut in then. "I don't mean to pry, but who is 'he'?"

"He was my husband..." came the impossibly simple reply, "...though I haven't seen him in decades."

They were all shocked, not least the ever-emotionally available prince. "Your husband?!" Mireille nodded.

"One day years ago, he came home saying he was taking over the family inn and wouldn't I like to help out there? But I'd just become a potter, you see, and that was all I wanted to do, all I'd ever wanted to do." She looked up at Addam appraisingly. "So I sent him packing. Told him maybe one day, when I'd created my finest work, I might come back to him."

"And that was that? He hasn't tried to find you since then?" Of course to Lora the thought was unthinkable, and rightfully so. Even decades couldn't have put this frail creature back to the time of a fledgling relationship, one where leaving this erstwhile husband of hers wouldn't have carried any real weight in her heart. And, Mireille considered the question judiciously, like she'd asked it of herself many a time.

"Well, maybe he knew that wasn't the whole story...that the thing about my finest work was just an excuse. The truth is, I didn't hate the idea of working at the inn. I just hated that he took it for granted that I would do it. He didn't consider my work important, and that hurt most of all because I loved him. I truly did."

It was a sobering thought. "I see..." Minoth put in, rather uselessly.

She waved the hand over her face once more, this time in an attempt to freshen and straighten up. "But look at me, rambling on at you. It's been a while since I talked about that... When I finish this vase, will you take it to him? Say, 'Here it is! Mireille's finest work!'"

"I'm afraid we'll have to decline that request."

"Huh?" Lora turned her face up at the Flesh Eater. "What are you on about, Minoth?"

He crossed his arms. "You made the promise. You should deliver the vase yourself."

Mireille looked very, very small now. "You want me to...? After all these years?" Minoth was undeterred, even spurred in his topic.

"It doesn't matter how many years it's been. You're here now, aren't you? There's still time for you to make good on your promise. Do it now, before it really is too late."

Sound enough logic, but coming from the person they all would have most expected to harbor a grudge? Addam turned the words over in his mind. Ah, he thought. He's still upset about the Quaestor... Never respecting his work, or even his base individual autonomy. Being embittered was the very smallest effect one could have expected to observe from the aftermath of that relationship.

Meanwhile, Minoth was booming on from his imposing height. "Lora and Addam are two of the most kind-hearted fools you ever met. So of course they want to help you. They'd do everything in their power to help. And you would just sit back and let them." He was beginning to look down his nose at the woman, and Lora had half a mind to kick his wayward knee straight herself.

Once again, Mireille considered their words, and once again, it appeared she wasn't really all that taken aback. "Heh heh...very well. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to get some exercise. Would you give me a few minutes? I need to gather my things."

She shuffled off, and they were left huddled around no target in particular. Lora gave Addam a look, and Addam reluctantly peered at Minoth, and Minoth squinted at him, and Addam looked back at Lora, and Lora gave Minoth her meanest gaze, and he dropped the arms to his sides and tried to look personable.

Soon enough, Mireille came back, a pitifully small parcel at her side. "Sorry to keep you waiting. Let's go and find my husband."

"Are you sure you'll be alright walking all that way?" Haze asked. And all what way, anyway? They had no idea, but it must be to somewhere distant, surely.

"Oh, not to worry. He should be at the inn at Hyber, so it isn't all that far. I'll be fine with you youngsters to help me."

"Wait a minute," Lora said, catching onto a thought. "Hyber? Does that mean your husband is...?!" Teo? Crazy old Teo was the one to bluntly overlook his wife's greatest passion and discard the precious work towards her dream? Well, he must have changed in all those years too...

"Heh heh, I haven't been back since the day we split up. You may be witness to a bit of a scene, but I hope you'll stick by me." And with that, they were off. The ever-faithful Carnelian and Chalcedony saw them out of the capital gates - yet another cheering reminder of the bonds they were working to restore in the community.

A processional guard of nine warriors plus two tween escorts made crossing the desert no problem, especially since they had dispatched of the Gogols overrunning Peln Spring - now just who was it that said that Nopon businesspeople couldn't effect positive change? When they got to Hyber, the town was duskily silent as usual, with nary an inhabitant save some restless traveling shopkeepers in sight.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" Lora, Addam, and Minoth had accompanied Mireille into the inn, though small as it was there wasn't much segregation between the party within and the party without.

"How very odd," Addam remarked. "The inn's open but no one's around."

"I hope nothing's happened to him," the old woman said quietly.

"Wait here, miss," Lora directed her. "We'll have a look around."

Mireille reluctantly pulled her eyes away from the decaying floorboards to look up at Lora. "I'm not sure if it means anything, but I spotted some footprints out front. Maybe they lead somewhere?" Indeed, what else would obvious fresh footprints in a sleepy little village like this mean?

"You've got a sharp pairs of eyes there, missus!" Minoth said encouragingly. Well, at least now he was eager to help. The addressed "missus" chuckled softly.

"I suppose I may have. I was just so nervous about seeing my husband again that I had my eyes fixed on the ground... I just don't know how I'll feel when I see him, or how I should behave...it feels like being a young woman again! Even though I know we can't turn back time..." She was so consistently pensive, even for an aged slip of a thing. What had happened to the simple, unquestioning bethrothal to the Prateor's teachings?

Together, Haze's careful eye and Mythra's hawklike focus traced the prints to a cliff overlooking the Titan's ribs above Wrackham Moor. Sure enough, Teo lay sprawled prone in the grass, making faint wheezing sounds.

"Hey there! Are you alright?" He only coughed in answer to Lora's query, then in between hacks got out a "Can't...breathe..."

"Let me see him," Haze said, all business now. The Wind Blade moved gentle fingers over the innkeeper's chest, feeling for any explicit injury and listening to his breathing. "His breath sounds all wrong. There might be something blocking his windpipe."

"What should we do?" Lora asked. "What if he's having some kind of seizure?"

"Shall I fetch a doctor?" Hugo stopped short of elbowing his staunch, awkward Blade, because yes, Aegaeon, of course we have time to run all the way down to the miltia garrison and drag Mungo all the way back up. "No, it's no use. You'd never make it in time!"

"We'll have to perform first aid ourselves," Jin confirmed. "Haze, what do we need?"

Keeping to her initial diagnosis, she was swiftly ready with the answer. "Ideally, something to soothe his throat. We need to help him breathe easier."

Brighid cast an expert gaze at their surroundings, spotting a patch of Glossy Chamomile nearby. "In my experience, nature makes a fine ally," she quipped congenially as she meticulously plucked and cleaned the stems. She quickly rubbed the petals into a paste and offered it to Teo along with a fresh canteen of water, proffered by Aegaeon.

Teo drank eagerly and wiped his mouth without a trace of professional comportment. "Phew! I really thought the grim reaper was coming for me this time." Interesting that he thought death something to strive away from, while his wife considered it an inevitable passing that wasn't so bad, after all. He proved that tenacity a second time over by heaving to his feet.

"Whoa, there. Are you okay standing up?" Jin concurred with his Driver, adding, "You should probably take it easy, old man."

Teo was none daunted, though. "Oh, don't worry about me! I feel much better now, thanks to you. I have these funny turns sometimes. But I just need a little rest and I'm right as rain!"

"You should absolutely get some rest," Minoth cautioned. "But you should know you have a visitor." They'd almost forgotten!

"A visitor? You mean a guest at the inn? Oh, blast! That means they've been waiting all this time. I have to hurry back!" And, hurry back he did, positively scampering up the path.

"Hey! You can't go running off on your own again!" Lora called after him.

She took off as well, and Jin groaned. "Lora! Lora!! Ugh, let's go. Aegaeon, come with me. We might need you."

"Of course," the Water Blade replied. So enough with the formalities and just go, will you, Aegaeon?

Haze was left standing awkwardly next to Brighid and Mythra, the latter of whom commented, "You really wouldn't think he was lying helpless on the ground two seconds ago!"

"He's young in spirit," Brighid answered her. "Not a bad thing at all."

"It is a bit worrying though, isn't it?" Haze wondered.

"Well, we came here to help, so we'll just have to do that," Addam said, perfectly sensibly. "In more ways than one..." Minoth intoned from behind him.

When they caught up to Teo, he was just taking in the contents of the front steps of the inn. "Hold on...it can't be... Mireille, is that you?"

She was smiling wanly, as ever. "It's been too long, Teo. You look older...as do I." Teo put a hand behind his head and stretched, like he was remembering an old habit.

"Well, I never. Well, I never! What's the occasion? Have you finished your best work? I've been waiting to see that."

"You've been waiting? Even though I didn't write to you even once?" Mireille was clasping her hands in faux shock. "You've never been waiting all this time. Heh heh! I know when you're pulling my leg."

"Ho ho," Teo replied, and like a matched set they were. "You've not changed either. You still laugh when you're embarrassed. Let's go inside and talk." When he ushered her through the doorway, it was less with the flair of a host and more with the tepid care of an old friend, long been away.

"Hmph. So you're ill. And you still came all the way to see me?"

"It's all thanks to these youngsters," Mireille said, gesturing to Lora and Jin, Addam and Minoth, who near about filled out the admittedly pretty cramped room. "You're not dead yet, so why not do what you can while you're alive? That's what they said to me."

Minoth gave a huff of his own and crossed his arms yet again. "I think I chose my words a little more carefully."

"Did you really? I couldn't tell..." Jin remarked, voicing Lora's thought for her. The Flesh Eater's head swiveled swift as anything to give the Ice Blade a look that he must have missed out on in the previous day's scintillating exchange, his ponytail whipping dangerously as he did so.

"Everyone, I'd like to extend my heartfelt thanks to you all." By then, Minoth had finally turned his gaze back to real present company, and uncrossed his arms. "When you get as old as we are, you get so tangled up in obligations, it feels as if you can't move anymore. You get used to glossing over difficult things, or giving up entirely. But that did no good at all...for either of us."

Mireille was hunched on a stool next to a low table, but still offered her agreement with her husband. "It's true. We were both too wrapped up in our own lives..."

He turned around to face her. "How about it, Mireille? Why don't you stay here tonight? We have years and years of stories to swap. And I want your expert opinion on how to display your vase."

"Teo...are you sure?" Addam, the goof, was blinking furiously at the post in the corner of the room and sniffling. "Damn it. I've got something in my eye..."

"Shall we leave these two alone?" Lora asked, a twinkle in her own eye. She, Addam, and Jin all filed out, and Minoth was about to follow when the old lady stopped him.

"Wait!" He turned back and waited for her to cross the faded rug. "Something's been nagging at me this whole time...haven't I seen you before in Indol?" Mentally, Minoth flinched, but he showed no outward sign. "I have! I'm sure I have! With someone called...Quaestor Amalthus? He helped me when I slipped on some stairs! Weren't you his attendant? He was so kind. How is he?"

The grimace came out now, and Mireille's face softened just a touch more. "Don't worry. Whatever their past deeds, all souls will attain salvation. I believe that with all my heart. Here, take this." She rummaged in a pocket of her smock and pulled out a small brown lump of...something. Minoth's face relaxed a little bit, and he looked her in the eyes once more.

"What is it?" "It's only a little thing," she replied mildly, not to say sheepishly. "I made it once to ward off evil and invite happiness. I don't need it anymore now."

There was silence as his large gloved hand passed over her small, frail one and tucked the clay bell into a pocket just behind his belt on his left hip. "May your path be blessed from this day on."

This is an important quest for Minoth, as we all well know, and there are more of the same, thank goodness, but at my point of final review on this chapter, I think it's probably best that I didn't decide to do any more sidequest novelization - this one was quite heavy-handed enough. But, I'm thinking about you, Armu herding...

I made Hugo sass Aegaeon and then unpaused the quest video from which i was transcribing the dialogue to find out that, in fact, he does just that - this sort of thing seems to happen to me far more often than I would expect.

Chapter 16: Dance on a Volcano - "The edge of this hill is the edge of the world, and if you're going to cross, then you better start doing it right."

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting,
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-- Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese"

Being inside the womb center of one of the very continental landmasses that made up the waystone of their world was enough to sober anyone. It was strangely clinical, mechanical, inside. "Were you born here too, Azurda?" Haze had asked brightly, and how could anything be born here? What kind of birth, to emerge from one of those strange green pods? Better a strange green pod, or a strange blue crystal? Who could know? Well, Azurda could, probably.

That made Minoth recall something else he'd said to Haze, about not even having a continental affiliation. He'd heard Brighid say it offhand (as offhand as she ever said anything, which was still certainly much more than could ever be said of Aegaeon), that "Indeed, we are Ardainian Blades!" They spoke with no accent, held no particular coloring or culture - hell, Aegaeon even knew how to cook leagues better than the rest of them, even though every time Minoth heard the proverbial, terminally even "Cooking is naturally learned by doing," he wanted to smack the Water Blade upside the head, or else call back, faux-jovially, "Then by rights, you shouldn't be able to cook for shit!"

How did they get to be imperial treasures anyway? Jin was a Tornan treasure, supposedly, but he looked even less Tornan than Addam or Lora did, and they were both no more than half-blood each. Well, but Minoth supposed he was glad that Addam didn't take after his father - he wasn't sure he could handle that personality exuded from a face with a caterpillar of a mustache and a khan-like piercing gaze.

At least Addam somewhat understood that you couldn't own Blades - Lora had once nervously confided in Minoth that all the prince's bravado about taking Jin away had been quite obviously nothing more than a regurgitation of policy he'd accumulated from the various palatial sources over the recent years, since the Paragon's theft had somewhat faded from memory after so many years. All hierarchy are bastards, he thought darkly to himself, no matter the governmental structure.

Was there any comfort in not being owned? In being a Tornan-featured Blade from Indol who was as cultured as the surliest of Ardainians and Urayans alike? Ah, that was it. Flora, back those many- no, few years ago, had screwed up her nose and peered with a million-joule, zero-degree stare into his wavering eyes and said, in so many words, that he was a poor excuse for a Tornan, if he was trying to be one. Had he perhaps been born here, the same as Azurda?

It was a nice thought, anyway. After all, in future, what else could he say but that he was merely a wayward Blade fighting in service of the Tornan Titan as it faced the world and the woeful Aegis? And...never spare a thought to his companions in that fight. It didn't do. If bonds were a thing naturally procured by doing, he was having none of it, and surely those wouldn't just drop out of the sky like Aegaeon's culinary prowess must have.

Arrival. The Holy Gate of Altana was closer to the desert and nature preserve than any lore-curious traveler might have expected - but for Malos's wanton destruction, it could have been reached just as easily from the Lasaria region as well. True, it was literally the center of the Titan, but it seemed so innocuously...present there, unlike even the seal at the head of the capital, which acted as an appropriately significant reminder of Torna's dread history.

Addam didn't anticipate the opportunity to make camp at any point throughout their imminent trawl of the Titan's core, so a fire was struck up at a nearby cove. They hadn't had many intentionally fateful confrontations such as this. Their journey had been long, it was true, and in some sense felt as though it had been intentionally prolonged by each member in their own way, but it had consisted of many smaller moments, ones that came naturally in the passing of life and times. Introspection wove itself in by small means, against pressure only from apprehension and other human foibles, whether those came on the parts of Drivers or Blades.

Well, here to for it. Minoth broke the atypical restful silence. "Who's on watch tonight?"

Aegaeon straightened up, as if he could ever be caught slouching. "That will be me, Master Minoth."

Minoth nodded, trying to at least give the impression of doing so pragmatically. "I'd say for you to take a real rest once in a while, but I know that's not your style."

Indeed, the Water Blade smiled without smiling. A monumental responsibility, to be the literal and metaphorical shield of the Emperor, of the Empire itself, but he shouldered it perfectly and wordlessly.

"In that case, care to share a drink with me, Prince?"

Addam furrowed his brow. "A drink? At such a time? This isn't like you, Minoth."

"Sure, it's not. But this is a special occasion. I've learned in the past two years that having these human cells gives me some reaction to alcohol, but thanks to my original nature, it only affects my mind, not my body. Being alone with my own thoughts all the time, I never saw much use to imbibe. It's different now."

He didn't clarify further, but Addam saw his gaze drifting over all the kindred souls who had just recently been gathered about the fire.

"I think I'll leave you to it - not that I'll leave you alone?"

Minoth nodded slowly, eyes closed. Rather than its usual place propping his chin, his fist was held loosely over his lips. He never would have pegged himself as recreational - still wouldn't - and didn't care to broach the topic of a bad night in anything more than vague ideation.

Damn it all to hell. Made it look like he'd been through it all, didn't he. Made it look like he was the worldly rogue with no fear, not truly. All opinions formed, all doubts cast, surprising him a feat and a prize.

He didn't want that. Not even to be the lovable rogue. He shook his head at the disgusting little turn of phrase entering his mind next. He wanted to be the loving rogue.

Architect, it sounded sickening, not least because he knew his character as played dictated that he should think so. He hadn't even taken a sip of the Gromrice whiskey yet.

"Would you talk with me, Addam?"

Minoth cast about for the most feasible resting position. He'd had enough of perching on logs and stones, his long legs continuously either bent or supporting his full weight and strides in a solitary marathon without end. Leaning the small of his back against the inner circle of makeshift seating would have to do.

He uncapped the flask and took a swig. The burning taste turned from appreciable to acrid when it mixed with the traces of ether in his esophagus.

Fire ether, though only an approximation of natural, oxygen-consuming flame, crackled with true warmth. Light ether was like the sun on your arms in the late spring, like a loved one's hand on your cheek (or so he'd been told). Darkness was the clinical abscess of either. It was the heat of space, of unwelcome presence and foreboding.

Why was he darkness? Why was he pain? Would earth, with its comfort and solidity, not have suited better? Could Drivers manifest this deeply, changing a Blade's very elemental core?

Addam hadn't seen fit to speak yet, viewing Minoth's apparent despondence with twinfold sorrow and curiosity. He gathered Minoth would let him know when he was ready for conversation. Still, he wasn't sure how to gauge the mettle of the internal dialogue that must have been proceeding grimly on. It had continued for several moments without real outward indicators...he hoped the thoughts weren't too dark.

There was Haze, looking like a very picture of Lora, with her wind that could just as easily have been sprightly fire, if you squinted. How long ago had Haze been resonated, from what season of life would that decision have been informed? Was it a choice of frugality, since it was convenient to have two opposing elements available at any one time? Who or what manifested the elements in Lora's braid-whips, anyway?

Too many semantic questions now. Back to thinking about people.

By the Architect, he loved people. He was sure it was voyeurism, vicariousness, whichever pathetically-connoted phenomenon, since people-watching was about all he could do, most of the time. And far be it for him to say that he was a people person, no no. He could be. But he wasn't. Had to pick a nuance, carve himself out. Always had been a personal challenge, that.

But what if you met just one group, and you cared for them all wholeheartedly, even if you had a hell of a time showing it? That wasn't cheating. Couldn't be. Because he was doing it. Liked it. Cherished it. Needed it.

Time for more whiskey. Burning again, and a wincing, willful rejection of his darkness. He never found out if Amalthus was actually his first Driver. No records preserved for a two-bit gunslinger like him, and of course the bastard climber of both nobility and worldscapes wriggled away from the questions, wouldn't tell him.

Probably had a journal in that other life. Probably wrote some pretty nice prose. Damn it. Lost to the ether. Or lost to humanity. What was the difference? Addam.

The prince perked at his name. "You rang, Minoth?" He struck at levity for a non-belying buoy, like always.

"Come sit with me?" It wasn't a question, more a plea.

Addam settled obligingly down in front of the embers of the campfire, his bare shoulders stung by a chilling gust run down along the neck of the Titan; it was like a wind tunnel here at the base.

"Awfully chilly down here - are you sure you don't want a blanket?"

Minoth made a low noise, like humming from the back of his throat. "I'm warmer dressed than you are. Won't say I don't appreciate your bumbling ruse, though." The words were placed carefully yet still carelessly tossed off - the decisive cling to brevity was obvious.

"I'd like you to hold me, if you don't mind."

Addam suppressed any lingering surprise as he readied his reply: "I'll be blunt, if I may."

Minoth nodded, slouching down a couple inches further.

"Is it 'brothers-in-arms' holding or 'kiss-it-better' holding?"

The asker feebly tipped back the remainder of the whiskey and used his slumped position to angle a kiss at the underside of the prince's jaw.

"Understood."

Gathering the pitiable bundle of leather and muscles into his own armor-clad arms was no easy task, and Addam considered not unceremoniously removing pieces here and there, but Minoth was no child who needed undressing. Nothing for it, in the end.

"Say, Minoth, I've no mind to make fun nor take advantage of your more tender feelings here, but you're a little bit too much cowboy for me to handle. Can you lift yourself?"

Minoth grinned darkly. "Sorry for the dead weight, Prince. It's like I said. This stuff doesn't affect my body. Kinda wish it did. But, I'm just feeling sorry for myself here. Heh. I'd better sit up, after all. This is looking mighty undignified."

He shifted up with a not-all-theatrics grunt, clapping a hand on Addam's knee as he did so. The cowboy's old bones he always professed to have, perhaps introduced since his experiment as the first sign of deterioration (oh, to think of how glorious he'd been before...), were the only limitation on his movement.

And, by then, Addam thought he was beginning to understand the purpose of this horrible little charade of solace. Minoth, having rightfully shunted his bond with Amalthus, was left only feeling the wear of the path behind. He didn't have the vibrant connection between a Driver and Blade to stimulate his nerves, and didn't have the real heart of a human to keep him pumping either.

"You ever notice how Blades don't really feel for people, not really?" Minoth asked, poking into Addam's reverie with prescience. Addam only wrapped his arms around broad back and shoulders in response.

"They act out of a fantastic moral sense, and they learn how to play a perfect foil to their Driver's emotions. Not to say that they're only acting! Some have a compass set by truth, some compassion, justice, bravery and the rest. Their element, their special abilities...it's all a hell of a cocktail to make up their character. But they don't have that little twinge for all other beings."

As he said it, Minoth gave a twitch of his own, trying to reposition the protusions on his back from being crumpled up, even if by way of tenderness. Trying to save some vestige of distinction from crumbling away. Maybe it wasn't possible. So, he continued.

"Malos said he was a 'diligent student' - is that the curse of Amalthus's Blades? To become a sick, perverse observer like the creeping Indoline himself?"

Addam hid a kiss, almost autonomous as he shared a mellow spirit toward his dear friend's brooding, at the base of Minoth's ponytail in protest.

"So, here I am. Turning to drink and trying not to let my feelings die in cold ether," Minoth finished. "What say you, Prince?"

"Me? I'm just listening. This would be a soliloquy, as you call it, yes?" Addam's answer was a question that came in some ways rhetorical, in other ways not, head tilted to indicate inquisitiveness without free hands to gesticulate.

"Indeed. But it won't do. I've got to strike a balance between silent wry smiles at the campfire and relentless self-examination. It may be that my role here is meant to be restricted to the fringe player, the mysterious figure from the past, but I'm through questioning what to do about it. Not that I want to be all paternal like you either, though!"

Addam sighed, if feigning understanding then with a close enough approximation. "Auresco wasn't built in a day. Neither can be strong interpersonal relationships, and I fear you may have brought this to me a little late in our journey. But, I'll do what I can."

He briefly deliberated over using a euphemistic "like this" to mask his next words.

"Would sleeping in my arms tonight help?"

Minoth chuckled. "What, you coming onto me?"

Addam jerked his arms up and away in surprise. "I- you asked me first!"

The chuckle grew into a full-bodied laugh, and Addam could tell that the prospect of waking the others or at the very least distracting Aegaeon was something Minoth had calculated and relished.

Even eccentric humanity cast a grave glance on excessive platonic affection. Maybe they'd all get burned up tomorrow. Nothing mattered. He chased the laugh into Addam's cheek and kissed it with warmth, leaning away from the crutch of the alcohol.

"Come on. I'll protect you - you and your feminine shoulders!" he exclaimed, earning a muffled shout-laugh of a "Ha!" from Addam.

Easily scooping his proto-Driver into his lap, Minoth undid his ponytail, shook out the dents, and lay his head back onto a folded blanket he'd grabbed from the other side of the seating rocks. No protests to ignore: Addam just smiled and moved in kind. It wasn't resonance, but it was affinity for sure.

As you can see, I reordered the visit to the womb center somewhat, since it comes well after the knighting ceremony. After all, I don't quite understand why Azurda's immediate suggestion, and Addam's hearty agreement thereto, is that they go there. To do what? To make Azurda from fluttering lore trap into flapping lore dump? I guess. Anyway!

Minoth might have purple energy, but it's really for the most part just because they made his attacks have purple particle effects, I feel. That's probably the most compelling color choice, though; I can't really imagine an orange-brown blast of ether looking great for him, especially with regard to making his entrance in the Jagron fight distinctive.

Chapter 17: The Lamia - "Each step he takes, the perfumes change, from familiar fragrance to flavors strange."

If you haven't realized at this point that this is just hyperdosage Addam/Minoth "if not then why" then I haven't been doing my job even half right. Let's fix that now. If no other chapter has made you go absolutely feral about these dumb gay cowboy prince boyfriends, let this one be it - and let me know about it!

"Another stepping stone to victory."

They had broached the entrance to the Tornan Titan's interior, and though the atmosphere was oppressive and gloomy, their defacto leader was trying to put at least the suggestion of a smile in their minds and on their faces. Minoth was, to his own incredulation, approving of the gesture.

"Alright, Addam, put that emotion into a song for us!" The prince gave him a sideways glance, but cleared his throat nonetheless.

"Oh Torna, glorious Torna, the wounds I've borne for thee...!"

His voice was a lovely baritone, giving gravitas and cadence to a lyric that may well have been spontaneously composed just then. By this point, everyone else was looking on, but Addam was unsurprisingly not daunted for that reason in particular.

"Oh damn you, Minoth, now it's stuck in my head!" he groused, still in good spirits but definitely feeling a little foolish.

Minoth threw his own head back and laughed, not caring about the impression it made. "At least now we know you can carry a tune, though!"

"What, not going to sing with me?" Silly, silly, silly.

"That's exactly what I'm going to do, my prince! Come on, sing the back parts so I don't sound a fool."

The song Minoth was thinking of was insouciant and very potentially embarrassing, but what had his words of the other night meant if not a willingness to do the very such things? He started in as they walked.

"I worked for years, without respite, day and night, to succeed-!" "Oh yes?"

High tenor and full baritone gave a wondrous mix, and they slung arms about shoulders in stride, to Mythra's great chagrin.

"To climb the peaks!" "Oh, yes!" "So I'd shine--" "Shine, you shine!" "Forgetting often in my race against time..."

The notes rose up, then came low just as quickly, and Minoth cast a glance about the group, which was watching him with mixed reactions, though mostly amiable amusement.

"My friends..." Say, Jin. "My loves..." Why not Brighid? "My troubles!"

He spun a decisive finger in Addam's direction as they belted these last lines together (ha ha, to keep tabs, you know). The prince, meanwhile, had gone pointing from Lora to Aletta (the general direction, anyway) to Minoth-Mythra-ceiling and finally just spread his arms wide because, well, for a prince like him, the whole world could be troubles - for all of them, in a time like this.

It was at this point in their journey that Minoth began to be dimly aware of the fact that there was an ether line maintained between him and Addam as they fought the myriad relentless Parisax within the Titan's cavernous innards. Not only that, but very rarely was it blue. Minoth didn't know all that much about the difference between blue and gold affinity lines, but he knew he'd never had the better kind with Amalthus, and that it took a fair amount of actual hand-to-hand practical driving to get good strong affinity going.

Well...shit. He tried to catch someone else's eyes, anyone else's besides Addam's, to see if the phenomenon was just new to him, or if everyone else thought it was freaky, too. Jin was the first to lock in eye contact, but Minoth's frantic motions to the wobbling, writhing wavelength that he wasn't quite sure anyone else could actually see in the first place, just objectively, merited no more than a befuddled glance, and then a loss of interest.

Brighid? Well, he pretended to be able to gauge her moods with a practiced air, but really he was a hack at that more than anything else. Aegaeon was such a long shot it wasn't even funny; for all his jetstream-diligent focus, he could miss many, many beats without even trying. Hugo? Too short. Just too damned short (what an irrelevant reason, but he went with it in his panic). Haze too likely to get focused on the wrong thing, Lora potentially teasing...oh, that was everyone - kids notwithstanding, as ever, even if they had been there and not left in Auresco.

Flashes of light danced around him: Mythra using her wildest and most erratic move. Against his better judgement, Minoth reached out for her wrist and yanked, knowing he'd earn limitless ire but needing to convey the gravity of his question as it quickly grew to overtake him. "Yeah," she bit out almost immediately, "he's your Driver."

He's your Driver. Your Driver. He's my Driver. Addam Origo. He's my Driver. That wasn't- that didn't-- No. Not a chance. Not on this earth or any other. He tried to stop it, tried to cut the link. Soon enough, he found that he didn't remember where it came from with enough clarity to actually be able to do anything about it.

And then, Addam was looking back at him with a bewildered glare, the Parisax dead and withering and the cave so cramped for all its openness. What was he staring at? Drivers weren't supposed to really feel it, least of all-- Least of all Drivers who weren't fucking yours not because they were usurping your own but because you didn't fucking have one, Architect damn it!

Was it a trick? Was it some cruel, inane trick, the reason Addam had been so eager to take hold of his weapons, to bring him into the fold, to present him so proudly regardless of the fact that he'd said he was Quaestor Amalthus's Blade? The fucking daft princeling didn't know tricks, didn't have a single wile beyond his crafty gaze when presented with an opportunity for affection. He was so pretty and he didn't know it, he was so perfect and he didn't know it, he was so...my Driver and I didn't even know it. Maybe he didn't even know it.

His Core hurt, suddenly, burning and aching just as it had back in the palace not a week ago, not a month ago because they hadn't been together a month ago, but two, three years ago now. And Addam had said it was beautiful and...oh, he had kissed it, hadn't he, and caressed it and made it his own, as much as a Core Crystal could ever be a human's because the thought was laughable, a Blade couldn't be owned - Minoth had tried to convince himself of that much ever since the first time he'd stepped off of Indol alone.

Addam had never once so much as blinked at the fact that the Core was twisted up the wrong color and composition. He'd kissed it almost in spite of that fact, of course. But then, why should he care? It didn't matter, did it? No, it mattered. And yet, the light on Addam's face when he'd first arrived, the smile he'd returned because it was so right and so true. If he'd seen it any closer up, it probably would have broken the damn crystal full in two. That was...unconditional love, wasn't it.

His Core hurt and the link was still there, bright and beautiful gold, all but blistering like it knew it shouldn't be there. But shouldn't it? Parisaxes carried wind elemental ether and the entire cavern of the beast, a heaving, sagging chest of its own for all its stony construction and constitution, sighed. The Tornan Titan itself sighed but Minoth could have sighed a hundred times and it wouldn't have relieved a bit of the constricted feeling in his chest.

They shouldn't have been tired, not for the work of today - or hang on, what time was it? Resting time, somehow, the battles took so long and took so much out of them all. Snack time, he heard Haze and Mythra conspiring, though the Light Blade still peered watchfully in his direction. Where was it right for him to go? To a half-secluded corner of ground to lie down with legs crossed up on each other, apropos of nothing and such that Brighid would smirk at him and make a snide but admiring remark? To a far wall, leant with open swagger as Jin or Aegaeon came to him with some question or topic they knew he'd appreciate?

No, none of those. It was right to go to Addam, because Addam was his Driver, for better or for worse. Minoth went awkwardly, a slow walk that didn't suit the swivel of his legs in their sockets. Addam was still standing where he had been when the battle had stopped, inspecting his greatsword as if he ever put a moment's thought to the condition of his weapons or even his armor.

"Are you tired?" He wasn't sure which one of them had said it.

"I am," the other answered. "How did you know?"

"It's my job to know, isn't it?"

"I don't know about that. You have a lot of jobs, but taking care of me isn't one of them."

"That's what I don't know about."

"Oh, really? A lot of knowing we're doing, isn't it, then."

"Or not knowing, as it were." "Indeed."

What does one do when one is tired? Not snap and be cagey, not make extra jokes that probably aren't all that funny, not pretend that they're not tired. And, probably, one should not stand there and think about what one should do when one simply knows that they are tired - and that someone else near to them, perhaps dear to them, is tired, too.

Minoth was saved from his useless, fruitless thoughts by a pair of very warm, very loving arms wrapping around his back and squeezing so tight, oh so tight. A warm, gold-gray head was nestled so comfortably in his shoulder; a brilliant, wide-as-the-moor smile was full and deep behind where he could see but right in the dearest center of where he could feel.

He stood there for several long moments, just receiving, and there was so much to receive that it didn't seem to do to do much else. But, he was too cerebral for his own good, as ever, and the thoughts crept back in, try as he always had might to will them out, and they said, "You dense old cowboy, he's been doing this for far too many years for you not to hug back, what are you waiting for?"

And so when Minoth made to move his arms to circle around Addam's back, he found that they were already there. They were still tentative, however, far more than they should have been, by rights. He shifted them about aimlessly, but security escaped him. How could it do that? All there was was Addam, and Addam was right here.

Minoth squeezed closer himself then, and heard Addam's smile shake with the merest entry of a sprinkling of tears. He spoke the name almost reverently: "Addam..." and Addam pulled him somehow tighter, and the circle was complete, and the bond sang. No hook, no claws, just hands and hearts. The tension in his chest eased away completely. Maybe it would never return.

He found that he wasn't afraid in the least of Addam hurting him in the same way as Amalthus had. It was, laid out end to end, practically impossible, nigh unthinkable. So what was he afraid of? What, as his own internal dialogue had so helpfully (or perhaps unhelpfully) prompted him, was he waiting for?

"I love you, Minoth."

The words were desperately quiet in his ear. What was he waiting for? Not that. Not fucking that. Everything had been so warm and so right and so close but suddenly Minoth wished to undo it all, back to the Parisax fight, back to the campfire talk, back to the Jagron battle, back to the moment in the palace when they'd just run away from Amalthus and Addam had only just let go of his hand for the first time.

"Don't say that, Prince. You don't have to-- Don't say that."

"Don't I?" Addam sounded so terribly young and unsure when he said it quiet and peaked over a too-broad shoulder.

"No, you don't," Minoth replied, pulling back yet reluctantly. "A Driver doesn't have to say that to their Blade."

"But you're not my Blade...?"

"Oh, I'm not? Why don't you pick one before you start throwing words like that around?"

It hurt so much to walk away, and not just because of the dying bond.

"Not just my Blade, is what I wanted to say." Yes, wanted to say, but the too-little-too-late phrase, both of them, died in the prince's throat.

"Is the term 'Driver' a four-letter word to you, Mythra?"

"Huh?" Manners dictated that she should have stopped eating to answer hers, whether Addam was it or not, but just then she tore another chunk of bagel out of the...interesting creation she was holding as they sat in a loose group against some crooked webbed pillar or other. After she had chewed and swallowed, her eloquent reply was thus:

"No, it's not four letters, it's six letters. Even if you make it a verb instead of a noun, that's still five - how are you spelling it? 'Driv'?"

Addam shook his head, fondly despite himself. "I should be grateful that we've brought you up in polite enough company that you don't know what that means - or perhaps it's the other way round. Still, it doesn't matter. Would you say the same about love?"

Mythra was doing some fast math and shot back measuredly, "Out of context, yes. In context...no."

Addam nodded. "You'll tell me about the other one later. But that's good to know, at least. Now...what would you say about him?"

He gestured with the side of his head to where Minoth was sat childishly at the edge of the group by Lora, looking like he was about to request that she arm-wrestle him directly through the floor of the Titan and into the Cloud Sea below - or teach him how to suplex someone else in equal-targeted measure, either way.

Mythra grimaced. "He's just about the last person I'd care to make that judgement for."

"What, like Malos?" "Even more so than Malos."

This again. Addam crossed his arms and studied his first Blade.

"Just what is your grand overarching problem with him, anyway? I can tell that you dislike him, you know, it's not some private hobby that you can indulge in without me finding out."

"What?" Mythra was chowing down on the bagel again. "What's the big deal?"

It was enough to make a poor Driver want to bury his head in his hands, but Addam resisted the temptation. "You two are some of the most contrarian people, human or Blade or otherwise, that I've ever met, and I've met my uncle behind closed doors. I would have thought at least the two of you could get along."

Mythra snorted. "What, so we can be Addam's two weirdos together? No way." I won't be anyone's anything, she'd said. Of course, and certainly not in pairs - they already had the analogy of Malos to thank for that.

The prince twisted at an elbow with the opposite hand, perhaps trying to scratch at an itch under the many armbands that covered it.

"Sometimes I even think you like Brighid more than him," he offered at last. "Or hate less, whichever."

"Well, duh." "'Duh'?" "Brighid's strong, and pretty, and not a guy." Well then. This was re-crossing arms conversation.

"Oh, so you hate Jin just because he's a male Blade? I wouldn't have thought that those kinds of things mattered to you, Mythra."

The tagged address was hasty in its addition, and she made due note of it. "You mean me specifically, or Blades in general?"

So quickly returned to wallowing in a double dose of shame, Addam didn't answer.

"Anyway," Mythra said, clicking her tongue, "I hate Jin for...other reasons. You know that." I know that, do I? But I really don't think you hate any of us. Not least Jin.

"And, say, Aegaeon?" "Aegaeon's..." she waved a hand in the air in front of her face, "...Aegaeon." Very mature, nuanced description, thank you Mythra.

"Careful, young lady, I've heard people saying that 'Mythra's...Mythra,' so you're not in the most auspicious company even by your own standards."

"What?! Who?" Addam gave a clucking noise of his own. "I'll never tell. But he might, if you played nice with him."

Mythra stood. "Don't ever use that phrase again." The bagel was finished; the conversation was over. "It's fucking gross - and don't excuse my language."

This gave me literal chest pains to write, which sounds like a pretty weird thing to say but like...they give me chest pains. They are so awful and stupid and I hate them and and and-- They flirted for all of two minutes total in the game but I'm right and you know it. Gosh.

For the singing: sorry, sorry, I made them sing Mes Emmerdes (that is, my working French and music knowledge translation of it), but still, THIS! That's all I'm gonna say.

I will not be taking the time to play through Torna yet again with a mathematical precision as to how many fights and quests and pouch items I indulge in, just to see what approximate levels trust growth should be at if all things are equal, so we're just going to pretend that Addam and Minoth get to S-level trust by the time you reach the Titan's interior, or some such, and that this is a choice informed by gameplay and not just because...because. :)

Chapter 18: One for the Vine - "He walked into a valley, all alone. There he talked with water, and then with the vine."

Look at them. Infinite planes in three dimensions, all connected by a maze of steps. When the corn is cut, the breezes change...that's an opportunity for intent. And yet, a lot in the long run amounts to nothing in the short run. Today we trip, tomorrow we fall. This is such a silly game, played in the container of life.

Sitting morosely by Lora and Haze was practically a death wish waiting to happen. The Wind Blade was unstoppably cheery at all times, unless the very face of evil was staring back at their group, and so, not being quite yet comfortable enough with Minoth to physically prod at his stubbornly sullen cheeks and force a smile to appear thereupon, gradually they just shuffled in their seats until he got up and moseyed away.

The pairs were laid out with frightening simplicity: Addam and Mythra, Lora and Haze, Hugo and Brighid, and then Jin lingering in his trademark unobtrusive self-possession near his Driver and fellow Blade. That only left Aegaeon, conveniently enough. Almost too conveniently, but given the way his little tussle with Addam had fallen out, Minoth didn't really suspect collusion against him.

"Aegaeon! What's up, my brother?"

Aegaeon's white eyes were blanker than ever, though his demeanor remained excessively curteous as he stared at the asker, then slowly tilted his head back. "The only thing 'up' is the ceiling of this anterior cavity within the Titan," he replied evenly. "I assume, however, that you are not referring to that fact."

"Oh. Yeah, you're right. But...nah, never mind." Minoth moved to walk away, but was stopped by a firm hand on his arm. "Master Minoth, if I may?"

"You copping a feel on me? I don't think so." He jerked the arm away - or at least, he tried, but there was no escaping the Water Blade's grip. And were those fucking provocative quirks in the practically nonexistent eyebrows? (Well, they were jarring pure white, but on the off guess, it was fifty-fifty whether they were actually there or not.) What the hell?

"I don't mean to pry, but I noticed that you and Master Addam shared a rather...tense moment earlier." Tense? It was pretty well the opposite, they had been fucking cuddling standing up for all Minoth cared to be reductive about it, and he did, a lot.

"Yeah? And what about it?"

"Does it not bother you?"

"Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't." Minoth shifted once more, but still couldn't budge himself away. "Will you let go of me, already? I'm not some palace ruffian." Reluctantly, Aegaeon released him, but his gaze was yet arresting.

Several twitchy seconds passed. Finally, Minoth burst the bubble.

"Why the hell are you looking at me like that?" he snapped, and didn't even regret it all that much as it reverberated in the cavern - worse things had issued from his mouth in looser circles and louder timbres. Much worse, and much on the other counts as well.

Aegaeon's voice carried a sheen of frost quite unlike him. "It is a Blade's duty never to leave their Driver's side, at times almost bypassing the boundaries of what is considered standard polite company. You have heard me speak of it many times, though I do not seem to recall you ever engaging with the discussion seriously."

What a crock of shit - and he'd say so with impunity, he wasn't afraid. "Yeah, so? I'm not polite company and I never have been. The rules don't apply to me."

Aegaeon tilted his chin in quiet, victorious concession. "That sentiment is...debatable, but nevertheless. So you don't question that you do indeed have a Driver?"

"I- Wha- Now wait a minute! I didn't say that!" Then remembering something further, Minoth continued confidently, having regained his mental footing, "No, I don't have a Driver, and I know because he told me so himself. So you can save your lecture, water boy." He sneered the last, but Aegaeon was yet stony.

"You are quite trusting of his judgement of you, then."

Minoth stewed for a moment on that. Did he? He had when it came to...came to nothing. He didn't need Addam Origo for anything. He made his own decisions. "I don't need him or his judgement," he rapped out at last.

"Is that so?" Minoth felt his lips curl in annoyance. Aegaeon's tone was beginning to sound rather like Brighid's, for all the similarities the two imperial Blades shared, but he found that he liked it far and away less when it wasn't issuing forth from a petite minx mouth beneath actually closed and not just voided eyes. Oh...the eyes. In no way did it seem natural for such a mess of ire to threaten from points so empty.

"I cannot see your link, and it would be vast impropriety to pretend myself party to interacting with it, but perhaps I can show you like this." Implicitly, Aegaeon's meaning was "Maybe I can make you see, you fool"; it was only his incredibly extensive commitment to etiquette that kept the very real and livid anger contained just beneath the surface from boiling over.

He conjured a stream of water then, passing it from hand to hand with simultaneous, even twin, ease and gravity. "Observe this." Minoth observed, but with confounded, spiraling impatience.

"The water flows as naturally as anything in this world. It cannot be halted, only diverted." As he spoke, Aegaeon demonstrated in complementary motions. "It seeks its true course and it will not be barred from reaching its goal. It is much like our ether."

"There is only one true course for a Blade's ether: their Driver's heart and soul. It casts that impression onto everything around it, as well. You cannot exist without him."

Aegaeon stopped, seemed to perhaps curse softly at this crucial exception to his pontification. "Most Blades," he gritted out the correction, "cannot exist without a Driver. In that way, perhaps you are more than just his Blade. But..."

He gently redirected the water to pass over Minoth's Core Crystal. Just as Minoth was about to give an indignant shout at the crime of being drenched, it pivoted away again, making its final arc towards the ground in the direction of Addam (and Mythra, by extension). The resulting wet spot made no elegant psychoanalyzable illustration, but the intended effect had already been set into motion regardless.

"Your affinity flows like water. And, most times when I have seen it, it also shines like the sun."

Training his eyes on Minoth once again, Aegaeon looked for signs of comprehension, then proceeded regardless. "The flow hiccups, at times, like that of any bond that has been stifled, and not allowed to grow as it should see fit, but you do yourself and our kind no favors in stunting it by your own hand."

"I'm not your kind," Minoth said quietly, the words escaping his lips unbidden and reflexive, nigh instinctual. "Not anymore." His face was still set on the ground, nose pointed like the most faithful compass tip towards Addam.

What Aegaeon was trying to get across made sense, intellectually. For a Blade, a Driver is true north, and for a Driver, a Blade is the way by which to set the course. Empirically, however, it just didn't fit.

Aegaeon broke into his concentration with care and grace, as ever. "Aren't you, Master Minoth? In some of the most beautiful ways, certainly, you still are."

The Water Blade put his trademark fist to chin. "What is up, you ask? Very often, the sun comes up, and we give thanks. But do we not also give thanks when taking our first sight of the moon?"

"It's almost nighttime, Aegaeon," Minoth replied after a moment, uselessly as it pertained to their conversation but still the offering of a fact perhaps not so obvious in itself. The hide of this Titan was not translucent like that of Uraya; daylight was immaterial and only interior bioluminescence served in any meaningful capacity.

Still, Aegaeon was undaunted. "So it is. I look forward to the rising of your moon." The unwavering hand was on his arm again, and Minoth found that he didn't mind, so much, after all.

Nighttime indeed fell, and Minoth let it. They ended up resting inside Torna anyway, regardless of best-laid plans and the ever-so-slight ickiness of gut-like residue all around. Stirring halfway through the night, Minoth noted the various aches in his neck from the habitually not-the-most-advantageous way he slept, with leg propped casually on knee and hands tucked protectively behind scalp, then made a head count.

Aegaeon was...asleep standing up, indeed. Brighid and Hugo lay under blankets behind his feet, Lora was curled up next to Jin, who had leaned against a nearby wall himself, Haze and Mythra were sharing a blanket (unexpected, but fine enough), and Addam...no Addam. The recent shrinkage of their group to only the nine adults made it all the more painfully obvious.

No Addam. According to Aegaeon's whole overextended diatribe, he should have been feeling a solid hole like a winnowing whirlpool in his Core, by rights, but he wasn't. To Minoth, the night was as cool and clear and either whole or empty as exactly any other. And certainly, Addam could handle himself, wherever it was he had gone off to. There weren't hardly any hostiles in the belly of the Titan, only the capricious Parisax. No big threats, nothing to get all worked up about.

But get worked up about it he did. It wasn't just the pains in his neck that kept him awake. Toss, turn, and turn about again, he couldn't fall back to sleep. Maybe it was just one of those nights. Sometimes the last traces of Bladeness got to him at all the strangest and most inopportune times, and then he didn't feel the need to rest so much as pause a moment to recuperate. For all he bloviated about it, it was truly odd how un-Blade-like the procedure had made him - almost as if he'd never actually been conceived that way in the first place.

Back and forth, forth and back, an unseen force nagged at him something fierce. Could it be just an overabundance of unnatural gravitational pulls here so near to the Core of the Titan? Sounded like a good enough reason. Good enough to let him fall back to sleep, though? Nope. Not a chance. It wasn't his own Core's sensory perception, as he'd already established, so that meant that it had to be a human thing. Who was the first person he thought of? Addam, of course. Always Addam.

Well, whatever. If his conscience truly insisted on getting the best of him, it'd have to present a pretty damn good plan as to how exactly he was going to find the missing prince. He wasn't a fucking bat, for pete's sake, he couldn't echolocate the man (putting aside the fact that his element gave him a handy advantage in sight lines against the current backdrop of shadow).

Turning a somber head back to the rest of the party, Minoth saw Haze stir, and Lora twitch slightly in response. That he could chalk up to shared idiosyncrasies, just like everything else, only when Lora moved it was in the subconscious direction of her Blade. Ah, fuck. What did the all-knowing bond have to say about it, then? He didn't mind looking around to pass the time, but if there was one thing Minoth hated, it was wandering aimlessly.

He found his Driver soon enough, lurking just beyond a stargazing pedestal complete with statue at the far side of the Titan's neck. Well, not that Addam ever did anything that could be fairly described as lurking. Okay, that really wasn't fair in the least. He was leaning over the balcony in an ungraceful slump, hair amuss and arms akimbo. A lurker would have put far more thought to how he might be perceived once found.

"My prince?" Minoth started softly. Lately he'd found himself needing to think harder and harder about which was the proper epithet before using one. "Prince" was the least sincere, "Addam" middling, and "my prince" the most. So, that was the opening to the scene.

Addam didn't turn around, but he lifted his head somewhat. "How did you know I'd be out here?"

Because I'm your Blade, or whatever the fuck's going on with that, Minoth thought immediately, but didn't say so. "I know you," was his comparatively simpler substitute of a reply.

"You missed me that much? It's only been a few hours."

He didn't want to abandon sincerity, or the slight lack thereof that Addam had just indicated, to the unspoken mush of a hug, but at the same time...well, of course he did. Minoth staved the urge with more words - words, words, words.

"How come you're out here in the first place?"

At this, Addam released the cold stone of the railing. "Because I'm afraid. Did you know that about me?"

Weakly scratching at the corner of his jaw, Minoth was silent for a moment before moving to join his Driver. "I think I gathered as much."

Two - no, three - stars twinkled bright in the distance, the pair more prominent a shared brilliant white and a third completing the triangle, glowing a peculiar red. Most of their flashes occurred in tentative synchronicity, but the larger white and even the standoffish red seemed to get away from the intended rhythm of the central one at times.

"I don't want to try to bluntly control Mythra. Never mind the fact that I near about can't, it just doesn't seem right. Yet at so many points I find myself reduced to simply wrangling her into place, into the role I need her to fit."

Minoth bowed his head and spoke lowly. "'S a clever allegory, Prince. I must've taught you well."

"So you know what I'm talking about?"

He shrugged, neck still bent. "Of course. I'm perceptive."

Addam sighed; the gestures were still as yet only gestures. "She needs to accept me just as much as I need to accept her, yet we're both having equally as awful a time of it - and it's for the safety of the world, too. With you, though..."

"Me? I'm flying free. No all-too-imminent threat to the future of Alrest do I make under your wing, huh?"

"No...no, Minoth, you don't. You don't--" It appeared the decision to let go of the railing had been conscious and motive, and Addam collapsed himself against Minoth's chest then.

He would have hit his head on the none-too-blunt armor piece, but thankfully Minoth had removed it earlier. All things in service of confluence, it appeared, even if only just for the current pathetic crumple of an ignoble young Master Origo. "It's all too much."

Minoth wasted no time in circling his forearms about Addam's neck this time as the ever-incessant tears began to fall. "It's okay, Prince. It's okay." They were feeble words, but with the almost entirely literal weight of the world on his fair unarmored shoulders (both pairs, in fact, but the owner of the other might not deign to be comforted even if she were here)? Sometimes feeble words were necessary.

Like everything in that classical vein of overdone poignance, the following minutes spanned several eternities each. Not that they each carried the due share of meaning for all that time; the silence was only barely companionable, and not much more nuanced than that.

Well, but that was a lie. It was a willful and practically malicious lie.

Just as the last time, they clung to each other in mutual fatigue and unspoken feeling. Not as the last time, Minoth embraced the very embrace itself. Whether he had respected Amalthus, had wanted to protect him, in the beginning, was immaterial and starkly irrelevant. He'd never loved Amalthus, never really cared for him more than about him, not at any point. But Addam here, so warm and alive in his arms, so good not through preternatural destination of determination but through sheer force of trying, and failing in consequence, sometimes? Oh, how he loved him.

Driver to Blade, Blade to Driver, human through and through versus one half and half? It didn't matter. Minoth wouldn't characterize the tacit pull as anything of just one shade, born as it was of something so intrinsically myriad. If he stopped putting on the bravadoed face, he'd clearly just have to sit down and come to his own grips with the fact that Addam was his Driver, and he loved him: two separate but solidly intertwined facts (likely, it got far messier when they weren't engendered separately; it didn't do to dwell thereupon).

Not that he would ever say the latter, even if he got through the former - oh, but there it went, in fact, right out of the prince's mouth. "I won't say it again, because I've gathered that you don't want to hear it, but...do you know, at least?"

A thousand curses rained down upon Minoth's head from the inside out for his idiotic actions of earlier that day - or rather, the day prior - but then again, it was a twisted measure of security not to have to worry about hearing it, or saying it himself, any more going forward.

"You told me, Addam. I know." As a spoken fact, that is, he knew. As internalized truth? His powers of disbelief suspension were incredibly strong. He could present infinite strikingly convincing façades at any moment's notice, and tonight's...well, it satisfied Addam, whether partially or wholly, for the time being at least.

The prince's hand was still clutched into the unyielding leather of the vague area between Minoth's chest and left shoulder, and Minoth's hand was gently cradling the back of his head, fingers lost in his hair. The tuck of head into shoulder was, as ever, remarkably fitting and blessedly comfortable despite any and all circumstances. As natural as breathing, Minoth quietly moved his lips to press against the side of Addam's crown - the anatomical, perhaps metaphorical, word, of course, for he'd never worn one and never would.

More silent minutes stretched on and on, and there they were, standing underneath the fucking shining stars of the world's sky, not a soul looking on or even aware that they were there. In a work of fiction, it would be the perfect backdrop for a tenderly stolen kiss, so like so many others they'd shared and then again so unlike all the rest. They were not, however, in a work of fiction, and the thought was somewhat grossly unapropos.

That reality didn't stop thoughts of the same, however, even though his partner just then wasn't party thereto. "You know, if we weren't clear around the other side of the neck right now, I'd be afraid your wife could rig up a pair of binoculars and spy on us."

"Oh, let her," Addam swatted the worry away. "You laid your claim before her, I rather think." And, eventually, I'll need to lay my claim before her again, Minoth thought bitterly to himself.

It was his least favorite trope: the fucking love triangle. He'd long ago sworn never to speak of it, their individual instantiation, out loud, but the way things were going, they were fast hurtling towards a big bang of a climax. Well...places, everyone, and away we go.

The Aegaeon's eyebrows thing is like a does-Stanley-have-a-mustache, right? Or is that just me? Anyway...

Every day I thank the wonderful artists of the internet for the last image in this post. That is all. (If I started collecting art recommendations like I've been doing for fics I'd be here forever but these two are GOOD my god.)

Chapter 19: Can-Utility and the Coastliners - "But he forced a smile even though his hopes lay dashed where offerings fell..."

We all know that Lora and Jin giving Malos what-for with Hungry Snake followed by Thin Ice is great, but what about that other oh-so-fetching gameplay mechanic that Torna gave us? When Mythra said "This is what humans and Blades can do together!" she wasn't lying!!

They did it. Somehow, they did it. Despite all Mythra's well-impressed fears that the confrontation would end in her losing control, calling up Artifices and razing Auresco, sinking Torna herself if Malos hadn't beaten her to it, they made it out all in one piece. All nine, even eleven of them, and countless more citizens besides. Creeping feelings were still to be had about Amalthus, the impetus of Malos's intent, but that could wait. Nothing in particular to do about it now.

It had been a group effort - the idea behind their attack, of course. Jin suggested taking advantage of Malos's brutish force to use it against him. Aegaeon posited value in two different weapon types being used in succession. Haze thought some element of surprise would do the trick. Brighid emphasized keeping Malos surrounded. Hugo reminded them to be careful of the enemy's concentration and attention as a whole. Lora wanted efficency and for no one to be in direct unprotected danger. Addam harped on control and communication above all.

With all those strategies in play, the deed fell to Mythra and Minoth. Mythra would swoop in and clash swords with Malos, luring him into using all his strength. For her part, she would press no more than was necessary - make him think she was tiring and falling back. Malos would use full force regardless, perhaps even more so on a weak target, like the bully he was.

Everyone else would be ringed around in a slightly irregular pattern, creating the illusion of disorganization and making it hard (for Malos) to keep track of who was where. So, when Malos was just about to shove Mythra to the ground, she and Minoth would switch places instanteously (he would have chalked it up to Aegis powers, but then it was something about sharing a Driver, and, well...), and Malos would fall of his own wanton momentum onto a swiftly driven dagger - two of them, even.

As the Dark Aegis collapsed, screaming and writhing at the puncture of its Core, Minoth recalled their singular conversation in the Praetorium with violent distinction.

("I'm not like you." "Of course you're not. Precious few of us are.")

Few Blades, and perhaps they precious, were unkillable by way of their Driver - not that they'd tried, and should they have? He wasn't quite ready for that, yet. The others might have been. Still, to be so severed from their awakener, and this one from the jump. "Like Driver, like Blade." Maybe, maybe not.

To Minoth's surprise, right after Malos's disintegrating figure uttered its last cursing roar, Mythra reappeared and hugged him fiercely. "Yes! I can't believe we actually got the bastard! Would have been nice if I had gotten to do it, but still. No more of that jerkoff around here hurting the people I care about."

That reminded them to retrieve the Titan's seal for later; it was a precaution that bore reinstating. Indol would be more than just displeased to have the Endbringer Aegis felled by way of a mutilated Core Crystal, but again, not their problem. Mythra pocketed it, quietly.

Hugs and happy noises came all around. Seeing Haze embrace Hugo in adolescent joy, Bridghid smiled and placed a warm hand on Aegaeon's arm. The liquid in his tubes bubbled with a little bit more fervor than just the applied heat should have given. That scallywag...! Minoth punched Jin's shoulder, and actually got a smile in return. Addam and Lora stood arm in arm, their love of people and country radiant. The very fact of an encounter with Malos not leaving them all in despondence and despair was a glorious one.

What, are you waiting for the surprise defeat to come in? Nope. Not happening here. They were happy. Later strife will serve to more solidly make up the complex tapestry of their lives, but now? I'll say it once more. Happy and content. All was right. Down to the nature preserve and back across the desert to the capital to join up with Milton and Mikhail? Still right. Better than right. Happy. And now the procedural homecoming scene...

"So, what will you all do now?" Addam asked after they had exited audience with the king, who had given many pronouncements of "Good Lora" and "Noble Hugo" and even something particularly warm aimed at Addam, much to Zettar's pathetic chagrin. It was a pressing matter, to be sure, and echoed Mythra's question to him of weeks before.

Lora looked thoughtful. "I dunno...I guess I hadn't really thought about it. I'm a knight, right?" she wondered, feeling at the pin on her blouse. "Does that mean I should go to live in the guards' barracks?"

The prince laughed generously, as ever. "Goodness, no. You're free to come and go as you please, and since what you please is usually conversing with our people and generally improving their lives, we'll certainly remain indebted to you."

At the last statement, Lora huffed a nervous breath. "Well. That's certainly a lot of pressure, isn't it!" Awkward silence overtook the group again.

"Oh! Master Addam!" "Hmm?" Addam leaned down for Milton to whisper in his ear, then snapped back up straight again.

"Titan's foot! I've got to get back to Aletta. Do you all mind coming?" Glances were exchanged, and the only caveat came from Hugo: "I suppose I can spare the rest of the day."

Addam nodded. "Right! Come on then," he exclaimed, bustling towards the back gate. "Nuncle! Nuncle!!"

The dragon-like Titan (born of Torna, it was only right) turned a stony horned head in their direction and gave a rumbling laugh. "You're a fool, Addam, do you know that?"

"Indeed, Nuncle, but what a lucky fool I am," Addam returned with a grin. "Alright, everybody up," he said, offering help onto Azurda's back with uncharacteristic efficiency. When all were aboard, he grasped Minoth's outstretched arm and was pulled up himself. With a mighty wingbeat, they were flying towards Aletta.

The wind banners whirred triumphantly as Azurda touched ground in the small corner of Wrackham Moor that dovetailed into the side of the manor's wall. This time, Addam didn't wait for his companions to disembark, instead leaping off the dragon's back and hustling up the stone steps, dodging militia members' greetings, with abandon. They could see him grasp the shoulders of his retainer Vez outside the front door to steady himself and make an inquiry, then at the answer grab the soldier's face with both hands and plant a kiss on his cheek before rushing inside.

"What gives?" Mythra asked. "He's being even loonier than usual." Milton just beamed, and even Mikhail smiled to Azurda at whatever private knowledge it was they shared.

"You seem to know something, Milton," Brighid said, "but what is most pertinent is whether or not we should join him."

Milton stretched his arms behind his head. "You're right - I think we should. Follow me!"

With that, the ten remaining travelers departed from Azurda and wove up the garrison steps to gain entry to the front hall of the manor, then a bedroom suite near the back of the house at Vez's direction and Milton's guide. Lora was the first to peek inside, by natural concensus, and suddenly everything became clear.

Addam knelt by the side of a simply-made bed, a small pile of cast-off armor comprising his glove and vambrace apparatus at his feet as he cooed over a newborn baby, blissfully asleep in its swaddle. A tired but content-looking woman with plaited chocolate-brown hair, blue eyes, and girlish freckles held the child in one arm and Addam's free hand with the other.

"Ohhh, they're beautiful," Lora whispered in awe. The other occupants of the room gently swiveled to gaze owlishly at her.

"Oh. I, um, sorry, er- Mrs. Origo?" Lora bumbled, putting an apologetic hand over her sternum. The woman laughed kindly. "That's quite alright. Is this Lora then, love?"

Addam chuckled. "The very one. Lora, Flora. Flora, Lora."

Lora's eyes widened. "Your wife's name is Flora?" Caught out, Addam scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "Er, you didn't ask?" was his sheepish offering.

Flora laughed again, her wide smile matching Addam's perfectly. "It's good to meet another Lady of Torna."

"I feel the same, I suppose," Lora replied, still a touch uncomfortable. "Well, I don't want to disturb you, so I'll see myself out-"

"Not at all, Lora! Is everyone else here too?" Addam stopped her. "Yes, Milton said we should follow you in."

"Oh, good. Do tell them to come in, would you?" The mystery uncovered, Addam was warmer than ever. "Okay, I will."

Lora stepped back out into the sitting room that comprised the second third of the master suite, meeting a diverse array of curious eyes. She felt mischievous, but didn't know why.

"He wants all the rest of you to come in as well. I think we should remove our weapons and any particularly bulky armor." Mythra rolled her eyes - she probably looked markedly more maiden-like without pauldrons and bracers - but they all complied, Hugo setting down knee and chest pieces gingerly to avoid making an abundance of clanging noise.

One by one, they filed back into the bedroom. Flora spoke first out of recognition.

"Hugo! I didn't expect to see you here, but what a lovely surprise!" Hugo made a shallow bow, but it was apparent that he wasn't hiding behind the formality. "It's wonderful to see you as well, Flora."

"We were just talking about you, you know," Addam intoned. "You were, Addam?"

"Mhm. We were thinking of naming this small fellow Hugo. Has rather a ring to it, doesn't it?" Bemused faces tried out the moniker in their heads, and Flora spoke what they were all thinking.

"That's his idea. I'm all for the concept, but isn't it bad enough my name is Flora Origo? He'd be teased relentlessly!" Nevertheless, Haze was excited to gush over the baby. "What were you considering, Lady Flora?"

Flora flashed a knowing smile at her husband. "I like the name Alex. Alexander, that is. It's got a nice short form, but a mature long form as well, and if my goofball of a husband here is particularly attached to passing on a spelling anomaly to his son, well, that can be arranged too."

Minoth spoke up from near the threshold, his voice easily carrying the depth of the room. "She's very practical, Addam. Told you she was a keeper."

"Minoth, is that you?" Flora perked up. "Oh, it's good to see you still in such good health!"

He crossed his arms and nodded sagely. "I'll say the same to you, Lady Origo. And of course I'm up and fighting! Someone has to be there to read the prince his bedtime story."

"Oh, he's incorrigible, Addam!" The prince in question nodded, eyes glassy. "That he is, my dear. That he is..."

"Wh- is everything alright, love?" Flora shot concerned eyes of her own to her husband. "Oh boy..." Milton sighed, readying a handkerchief.

"My whole heart is in this room." Hearing this, Flora made a soft noise and moved her palm from Addam's hand to his cheek.

"Master Addam, I am heartened by your words, but it would be wise not to let High Prince Zettar hear of such a sentiment," Aegaeon put in - it wasn't quite clear whether or not he was attempting to bring levity to the tender moment. Sniffling (rather overdramatically), Addam threw up his hands.

"The damned politics. Of course!" Leveraging the convenient position of her hand, Flora smacked him playfully. "Language around the baby!"

"What? He's asleep, isn't he?" Sensing that the conversation had turned to him, little Alex moved bright but lidded eyes around the room, taking in the troupe of strange people who had come to celebrate his birth. He yawned lazily, the movements of his mouth making an almost imperceptible "m-" sound.

"I wonder what that could mean," Lora teased. "Mama, Mythra, Milton, Mikhail, Minoth...guess we'll never know!" She ticked on her fingers as she sampled through Addam's amusingly large queue of comrades with alliterative names.

Mythra propped a hand on her hip like the infant murmur was a challenge. "I'll bet it was 'Mythra' - he knows my power already!" Addam could tell that she was slightly detached from the proceedings, but nonetheless he was glad that she yet participated with the group. Time to hazard something further...

"Auntie Mythra. My my, it sounds good on you." Mythra jerked back. "What?! No way! I'm never gonna be anyone's auntie, especially not that brat," she said with a brash dismissiveness.

Addam sighed, and Flora looked at him with particularly pointed pupils and eyebrows. "She'll kill me for saying it, but I think she'll come around." Mythra huffed harder.

"Well! I'd better make introductions, hadn't I?" Addam mused, standing and drying the last wetness from his eyes.

"Hugo you know, and of course Brighid and Aegaeon, his and my trusted guardians." The trio made greeting motions.

"My apologies, Mythra, but you've been known for better or for worse as my link to 'that Aegis business' - my wife has no patience for the worldrot of such things. So here she is in the flesh, my charge and my taskmaster, Mythra."

Mythra couldn't tell if there were bones to be picked with that description, a rather continued affront, so she just nodded blankly. "'Sup."

The atmosphere in the room rather blanked along with her, and Alex fussed idly. Still, the lady Origo was undaunted.

"I hope I'll get to know you better, Mythra." No ameliorated reaction came. "Yeah. Maybe."

Well then. Addam clapped hands on hips to clear the air. "Minoth saved us all from a Leftherian monster attack, just up the way in Hyber Pass, as a matter of fact. I'm glad you've been with us, my friend."

"It's been educational, if nothing else," the Flesh Eater boomed back, in comparison much more palatable and earning a grateful nod from Flora.

"The real newcomers are Lora, Jin, and Haze over there - well, Lora you've met already, and I suppose her reputation even precedes her! Jin too."

"Yes, I've heard of the Paragon - mostly just childhood stories, legends." Flora was younger than she looked, and Addam too, Jin deduced. "You're very quiet," she teased, showing that youth.

"Words and violent actions can often serve only to cloak a man's true intentions and character. Why would I say more than the truth begets?" Just behind him, Lora blushed despite herself. "A paragon among men indeed," Flora declared. "I approve!"

Addam was beaming at that statement, if he'd ever even stopped. "As do I, my dear. Lastly we have Haze, whose bright spirits and healing winds keep us all safe and sane." Haze curtsied, elegant in her wide pants. "Pleased to meet you, Lady Flora."

Before the ever-observant Flora could comment on Lora and Haze's shared visage, Milton piped up. "You guys are always forgetting Mik and me!"

"Oh, I do apologize, chaps," Addam said, voice mellifluous. "When I first met Jin and Lora, they had just rescued this young lad, Mikhail, from the ravaged villages of the Lasaria region. It was the first of Lora's many charitable acts, and he's been a quiet but crucial member of our merry band. Takes after Jin," Addam finished, about to add an "I'm afraid" but stopping himself.

Instead, he quipped, "Milton needed an example to follow." Mikhail waved stiffly, gaze trained on the baby in Flora's arms, before turning to whisper something in Milton's ear.

"Well, it's lovely to meet you, Mikhail, everyone. I'm afraid I'm not in much of a state to be a good hostess," Flora said, gesturing with full hands to the lack of mobility in her lower body, cushioned as she was in a duvet and quilts.

"That's perfectly alright, Lady Origo," Brighid replied, speaking up for the first time. "As long as we're here, we may as well help with any errands you may have."

Ignoring the irony of the Jewel of Mor Ardain offering to help her keep house, Flora expressed her thanks at the kind gesture. "I would be lying if I said I wouldn't appreciate that greatly."

"Flora, my compatriots here really have a fantastic array of talents, much beyond my foolish tinkering," Addam put in. "That warms to my point, as a matter of fact. Lora, Jin, Haze, Mikhail, I would be immensely gratified if you all would stay here in our humble abode for the forseeable future. Mythra, Minoth, you too. I've gotten so used to your company and our close bonds, I'd like to continue having my family around me from day to day."

"And don't think I've forgotten you, Hugo - I know you've a tremendous number of responsibilties, but if you could at least summer here a while?" Addam looked expectantly around at the hushed faces.

"Addam, I don't know what to say," Lora started. "That's awfully generous, and it's so sweet to hear you call us your family. I...Jin, what do you think?"

The Paragon's steely voice had a gravelly warmth to it when he next spoke. "Where you go, I go, Lora. Addam, you have my loyalty and I would indeed appreciate staying here with you and the others."

Haze eagerly nodded her assent as well. "It would be my pleasure, Master Addam - and thank you!" Even Mikhail seemed to brighten.

Satisfied with that contingent's response, Addam turned to Mythra. "Do you mind terribly being taken in like this? Cloud Sea Crab Sticks and all, hmm?" She had been ruminating over her outburst of earlier and turned to look her Driver in the eye.

"It's okay with me. But- you're not gonna, like, try to give me a curfew, are you?" Addam smiled at the receptive response. "No, no, nothing of the sort. And, you'll get your own suite, so no danger of sleepwalking there." Mythra reddened. "That was one time!"

Addam only laughed and cast a mirthful eye at his old friend. "Minoth, you will stay, won't you?" The Flesh Eater was grinning broadly, their precipitous history forgotten at least for the time being. "Doesn't seem like I have much of a choice, Prince. You've got a room with a study for me?"

"You're shameless, Minoth! Indeed I have."

Hugo broke in to answer the most nebulous question in the air. "Addam, I am of course flattered by your offer, but it is as Aegaeon said: what would world leaders think of the Empire quietly currying most comfortable favor with the fourth in line to the throne of Torna? It doesn't bode well, given the tensions we saw at the capital."

Addam frowned, his little dream fraying at the edges somewhat.

"Still, I cannot deny that the air here is far fresher and cleaner than that of Mor Ardain. 'Twould do me good to spend the summer."

"What have you decided then, Emperor?" Brighid asked. For all the deliberation that royal life might have seemed to instill, the Emperor's closest confidants could tell when his mind was made up.

"I should love to stay - I'd get to spend plenty of time with my almost-namesake, after all." Addam breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm delighted to hear you say so, dear Hugo."

Having apparently been party to the original twinkles of Addam's plan, Flora seemed just as content with the recent proceedings. "I can see why Addam was having such a hard time deciding about godparents! Will any of you be hurt if we forgo the specific naming of one or another?"

Despite the obviously affable rhetorical question, again Mrs. Origo's lack of years presented itself in her slight actual worry of offending. Brighid, no-nonsense, spoke for the group.

"Goodness, no, Lady Origo. I doubt any of us could easily be brought to harbor ill will towards your husband or your fair and gentle self."

"You flatter us, Brighid. All of you," Addam said, speaking once more to his care for them all. "Now out with you! I've many the sweet nothing to whisper to my wife..."

And we're off! No more canon for you! (Even though Addam/Minoth is already at least half as canon as Jin/Malos is.) This is just about the most boring cop-out of a Make Torna Not Sad 2K21 that there could ever be but uh...sorry? :) This was written long, long before it needn't be so complicated, and well it should have been because this story cannot become half that unabashedly fluffy. Not yet.

Now that we're post-bad-end, it's time to link some more excellent stories I've read! Here are two by the same author: one and two. And, a third, non-post-canon but collected here with the others. And another! this one a rare offering from Unformal_Sorrelle.

Chapter 20: Home by the Sea - "Images of sorrow, pictures of delight, things that go to make up a life."

The joy of writing.
A chance to make things stay.
A revenge of a mortal hand.

-- Wisława Szymborska, "The Joy of Writing"

Milton gleefully led the weary travelers and their bundles of armor across a connecting hallway into the manor's kitchen, pontificating to the fullest extent of his ten years as he did so.

"Master Addam doesn't keep much staff on here, since he's been out traveling in Alrest for so long. In fact, I think he sent just about everyone but Mistress Flora's aide on leave after Vez came back from staying with his grandma. And that means," he said mischievously, grinning at Mikhail, "that I get to pick all our rooms!"

"Yeah, where are they all, anyway?" Mythra crossed her arms smugly. "Like I said, this place could stand to be bigger."

"And you could stand to be smaller, but you don't hear me complaining," Milton shot back with crossed arms of his own. "Ugh! You little twerp..." but she didn't protest more than that.

"The bulk of the space must be in the basement, surrounded by the stone of the steps," Jin said. "It's surprising how homey the inside is, but then Addam would hate to live in a barracks."

"Indeed. The garrison's design is rather ingenious," noted Aegaeon. Milton nodded in an attempt to look sage - whether it had in fact worked was nobody's business.

"Even the servant's quarters are pretty nice. Master Addam made sure that no one would feel less important than anybody else here, when he inherited the manor. There's the front foyer that we came through, with the dining room to the left down the steps, the kitchen, where we are, back behind that, and the master suite on the right side, overlooking the moor."

"All the other utility rooms and bedrooms are on lower floors. Master Addam's workshop, the storerooms, a studio, and a library too. It's small, but Mistress Flora was a teacher before marrying Master Addam, so she likes to spend time there - even makes me take lessons." His downward cast at this last showed that he had been glad of his enseignant's necessary sabbatical.

Lora was curious. "Addam didn't marry a fellow royal? I suppose it makes sense, because Torna isn't all that massive, but still...actually, no, I can't say that I'm surprised," she finished fondly.

"It is rather in character for him, after all," Hugo agreed.

"This whole place is more like a villa than a manor. I like it," Lora declared.

"Right," Milton said, "now who should I put down in the dungeon? Mythra, you wouldn't mind, right? Your little Artifices could probably light up the whole place for you twenty-four hours a day, since I bet you're scared of the dark."

Mythra averted her head, not dignifying him with a response. And, then, there they all stood, somehow uneasy when put up against the maudlin prospect of "You just scoured a divine instrument from the face and body of the world but also a baby was just born and you live here now, pick a room and go about your business as you please." It certainly bore a stark contrast to rolling out blankets around a campfire.

"Well..." Milton started again after the silence had proceeded for too uncomfortably long, "I guess Mik should stay with me." The other boy's agreement came with a small smile, thankfully.

"There aren't any rooms with three beds, Lora, so-" "That's okay!" Haze cut in briskly. "Lady Lora and I can share!" Mythra cringed to herself; try hard much? It wasn't just pragmatism that had made her say that, that much was for sure.

Lora laughed, a little uncomfortably. "Yes, I suppose we can. But Jin can still stay close, right?" Her quickness to add the second sentence just made Mythra cringe harder. That situation was going to end up horribly dysfunctioned one day if those three were ever let anywhere near a battlefield again.

"Yeah," Milton confirmed, stifling his stutter and shrouding any possible discomfort of his own. "Master Hugo, there's at least one more suite with a single room and a double room - you guys can work out how you want to split it up."

"I look forward to it," the Emperor replied agreeably, setting them all on a more positively upward bent. That was that, it seemed - Addam's Blades were left to work themselves out, as ever.

"So...they're not going to be too sweet, are they?"

Flora gave a tiny minx smile that carried only the faintest trace of wickedness. "No, not unless you've brought actual Sweet Nothings back with you."

Addam latched on to this with gusto. "As it happens, Lora could make you some, if you want - they're about the size to put on a bedside table." And of course she already knew that.

"Stop being silly, Addam, I'm not mad at you. I just want to ask you about this little troupe you've brought into our home. Lora I like, and Haze seems nothing but sweet if Jin is a little edgy. If Mikhail has been befriended by Milton, all the better, because that boy can coax a smile out of anyone, and he sure as anything looks like he needs it. Hugo, well, it's as you said, he's perfectly wonderful, as are Brighid and Aegaeon."

"Not so much a troupe you're after, are you? It's my Blades you're wondering about," Addam said with the not-so-faintest trace of a gulp.

"Your Blades," she echoed, a little coldly. "Mythra's got an attitude and accompanying shoulder-chip wide as the moor, and Minoth...that man's still a clod."

"Why, I think he's rather witty, myself." "Yes, I'm sure you think a lot of things about him, yourself."

"Flora!" Addam cried, nearly whined. "What are you making me out to be?"

"I'm making you out to be my silly sweet prince who's caught himself a bit of a crush, that's all." After he had moved to the other side of the bed to lie down next to her and the baby, she tweaked his nose playfully. "It's alright, Addam - if you can make proper sense of the situation. For both of them, and for both of us."

"Isn't it enough that I've got a crush on you? To say nothing of this dashing little fellow!" So saying, Addam gazed at little Alex for a long moment, stroking his thumb gently over the tiny cheek.

"He has blue eyes," he said at last. "All babies have blue eyes," Flora retorted knowingly.

Addam shook his head, though yet distracted. "He has your eyes, is what I meant, and not just because they're blue - see how there are flecks of green around the outside?"

"Addam." "Hmm?" "Firstly, that's definitely just an anomaly that comes from being only a few days old, and secondly, as it follows on from the first...I don't have green flecks in my eyes."

The prince craned his head up as sluggish-sheepish slowly as he possibly could, and yes, when he found himself peering bashfully into his wife's half-fond, half-exasperated squint, her eyes were pure deep sky blue, without a trace of green.

"I think I know who does have blue-green eyes, too," Flora added, unhelpfully. Well, it was an intellectually helpful sentiment, of course, but it was not at all what Addam wanted to hear when he felt like a frog being lowered into a pot where the hand not holding him was all too hasty at the pilot dial.

"Have you been staring long?"

"I haven't-- Flora, I haven't done anything!"

"Mhm, okay," she snipped dangerously. "You didn't say 'we', which would be a dead giveaway, so I'll give you a pass - even though you certainly didn't need to extrapolate 'staring long' to 'doing things'."

Picking up the gauntlet and rising to the occasion Flora had presented, Addam batted back a drawn-out quip of his own. "No, you're right, I've got a guilty conscience. It's him I had Lora make the Sweet Nothings for, and then we made passionate love on a cliff overlooking the desert, and I looked straight into his eyes the whole time and said to myself, 'You know, I really do hope the child I'm having with my beloved wife will have beautiful ocean blue eyes like Minoth, my secret lover ever since that first fateful day when we stared each other down in the opulent halls of the Indoline Praetorium and fell instantly in love.'"

Flora rolled both head and eyes over in parallaxed sequence to glare at him, pointedly pressing a kiss to the top of Alex's head as she did so. "Only when his eyes turn gold will I really know you're lying."

Even as he huffed, Addam turned over, in, closer to her, wrapping one arm around her back and the other around the bottom of the swaddle and her left forearm.

"I still want them to be blue - perhaps even just to spite you!" "Mmm, right. We'll see about that."

Despite their room assignments, Minoth and Brighid took up immediate, almost continuous residence in the basement library. Minoth studied ancient Tornan epics, jotting down notes on his favorite narration techniques and character archetypes, while Brighid perused more recent pamphlets and almanacs, finding tidbits to add to her journal and more finely enrich what would eventually become her only recollection of a past life.

If they occasionally rested their hands in the same spot across a table or between two wingback chairs, well, nobody was there to see. And, if the only time Minoth was actually in his bedroom was when he had quietly spirited her away on a long afternoon lit by the last tinges of the sun that could be seen on that level, well, nobody minded that either.

("You glow," he'd remark, sounding absent but feeling the opposite of it. "I'm on fire," she'd reply coolly. "You know what I mean," he'd protest, "And you know what I mean," she'd say back, eyebrow and tone both arch.)

Being well-acquainted with the dark, Minoth had occupied the chief manservant's room, which was the only residential area in the basement, tucked between storerooms and the workshop, and for the most part went unused, since Addam didn't subscribe to the idea of keeping one of his respected staff down in the dungeonous depths de facto. There was a desk within for bookkeeping use, so when Minoth needed particular undisturbed concentration on the final details of a story, that was where he worked.

He began to dabble in poetry as well. Notes for Brighid, limericks with which to tease Hugo and Addam, haikus that Jin and Aegaeon appreciated, free verse for Lora and Haze, and sonnets for Flora. And, of course, he secretly practiced his oration of nursery rhymes and fairy tales for those nights when Addam and Flora were particularly exhausted and he volunteered to watch Alex in the sitting room that had been converted into a baby's nursery.

On those nights Minoth himself often was up late, almost into the first vestiges of morning, so when Addam awoke in the hazy early morning and crept into the adjacent room, he would gently lift his sleeping son from his old friend's arms, place the babe in the crib, and ease the Blade into a more comfortable position, since the rocking chair didn't afford guaranteed restful posture.

If Minoth had fallen asleep on the couch, Addam would place a bracing hand underneath Alex and hold the two of them, head on Minoth's shoulder. He never stayed long like that, making sure to restore order before even the faintest ray of light began to stream in (darkness Blades were particularly sensitive), so Minoth never explicitly knew, but his core loneliness seemed to ease away in those early morning moments, and it was a much appreciated unspoken gesture.

"Oh Flora, you heal my aching soul."

Minoth jerked awake at the flowery words in his ear, muffled though they were by strands of his hair. He had begrudgingly agreed to stay with Addam since Flora was on a diplomatic visit to Auresco and had taken Jin as traveling companion - Addam had duties of his own to attend to at the manor, and Lora and Haze were off on an excursion that everyone knew was a date.

Apparently this is what the prince had meant by getting clingy at night in a familiar bed: Addam's arms were wrapped around Minoth's waist, looped underneath his own arms, and he looked surprisingly small curled against the other man's back. His head, showing half signs of waking and half signs of sleeping, was nestled in the crook of Minoth's shoulder.

It was nice, he wouldn't lie...but this was just a little too comfy to ignore.

"You sure about that, Prince? If you were going for an adultery scandal, I wouldn't have thought I'd be it."

No answer. "Addam?" Minoth grabbed one of the arms circling his waist and shook it first gently, then impatiently.

"Wha-? Oh, Minoth, it's just you." The Flesh Eater rolled his eyes, not that the prince could see. "Yes, clown, it's 'just me'. Any particular reason you're climbing on me like a jungle gym and sweet-talking these flowing locks that do not belong to your faithful wife?"

Addam practically purred. "I get lonely in a soft bed all alone, and your hair is very pretty. Come on, Minoth, you know you love me." Minoth sighed, ever the long-suffering companion.

"You're right, Addam. I do love you. But not in your wife's bed!" he exclaimed, throwing off Addam's grasp. The purr turned to a pout. "So you won't cuddle me back to sleep?"

"Not a chance." He rolled over further away from Addam, but the insistent arms only snaked in to grab tighter.

Well, so maybe he held the calloused hands, rough from farm work and pot-throwing, protectively under his own. But that was it - not a chance!

Addam's best-laid plans backfired, too, every now and then, of course. Forgetting dates and times for return trips led to Flora stepping carefully across the carpet, lights still off, dropping her bags and outergarments near the nightstand, and feeling around the left side of the bed for an empty space. Having found it, she'd slip quietly in and turn over once or twice, eventually ending up facing back towards the wall and doorway from whence she had come, hands tucked under her head and about the pillow.

This would be all well and good until Addam stirred, slipped out from under Minoth to the right side (and that was how they had happened to so conveniently conserve the space, you see) and went to use the restroom, drink some water, check on Alex, whatever various and sundry errand. The mattress slouched and tipped from the change in weight, and Flora rolled over next to Minoth. He was still asleep, as yet, but then as a small, soft hand reached out to stroke the side of his cheek, he was very much awake, and near about sweating in his panic.

Well, but calm down, Minoth, nothing's happening, nothing's gone wrong...yet. You couldn't tell skin color in the dark, especially if you weren't looking, and big bony jaw could be mistaken for comparatively smaller sharp and birdlike one if you were careless. Only Flora wasn't hardly ever careless. Meticulous always, and noticing of every detail. Probably even in her sleep.

And so what if she noticed? It wasn't as if he was trying to make this a midnight tryst, an ugly wretched cheating thing. She knew, at least circumstantially, that he ended up there in the master bedroom from time to time, she had to.

What she didn't have to do was use the purchase on his muscular shoulder region to snuggle herself in closer, then stretch up to move her lips towards his mouth. Shit. Shit, shit shit. Time for snap decisions, and truly foolish ones.

"Come now, Flora, go back to sleep," Minoth muttered in his most long-practiced parrot of Addam's baritone bumble. Even if it was a laughably rough sketch of the very thing, it did the trick when it needed to. But, Flora didn't listen, instead answering him, "Silly goose, I will, but give me a kiss first, won't you?"

Okay...the corner of the mouth was simultaneously a less and more intimate location than the center of the lips themselves, but it was better than making no amelioration to the situation at all. Minoth made a singlular painstaking rotational shift of his head upwards and around to make that the only thing she could reach, and thank the Architect, it worked. Smooch scored and silliness satisfied, Flora burrowed back down under the warmth of his unwillingly offered chest, and all was quiet.

That is, until once more Addam got to making trouble. He stumbled back into the room, flicked on the ether lamp with impunity, and even smiled, the bastard, when he saw the awkward scene fast unfolding in the bed before him.

"Well, well, what have we here?" he murmured, but not half enough to himself. Minoth near about hissed a "Quiet, Prince, you'll wake her up!" as he whisked himself onto the bedroom floor and away.

"Wait, Minoth, where are you going-?" Away, away, away, but it was too late; the lady of the house had already awakened, as if summoned to life.

"Addam? What are you...? And Minoth?" Almost like minutely, preternaturally differing opacities in the alpha channel, it was just barely possible to discern which of the men had come in from out of the room, and which were headed back that way as she spoke.

Her tone sharpened, just a wit. "Whose lips were those?" Minoth gulped and all but ran as he made his exit. In his frenzied embarrassment and shame, he passed out through not the main threshold but Alex's room, from which the parents thereof could hear the boy stirring, light sleeper as he yet was, only five years old, and then a muttered conversation as the thundering footsteps halted.

"Uncle Minoth? Izzat you?" His words were muffled, bungled, by the reckless rub of tiny fists at child-sized eye sockets over miniature cheeks - well, not so much, anymore, but still.

"Shh, just go back to sleep, Alex. Your uncle's gotta go...think about the consequences of his actions."

"Co- consick-wha? What's that mean?" Privately, Minoth thought, it means your uncle's a dirty whore, but of course he didn't say so. "It means I hope you have sweet dreams, and all that. C'mon, you need water, or something?"

Alex was undoubtedly giving his sweetest, most supplicating juvenile smirk at this juncture. "Can you read me a story? So I can have even nicer dreams?"

Minoth sighed. Of course he could. And the lights had once again been dimmed back in the main room, so there was nothing more to run away from, anyway. "Which one, the prince and the princess?"

"Yeah! That's my fa-vo-rite." Great. Why he'd shot himself so directly in the foot on this count, he'd never know.

He didn't need a manuscript handy to reel off the whimsical tale, about a prince who waged valiant deeds in service of his kingdom but whose courted princess was even more honorable for her inmitable intellect and charm. It was she who saved the wayward prince from a bout against a darkness-dredging dragon, hoarder of all the insects and perfumes in the land, rather than the other way around, because there was nothing Minoth, and by extension his faithful pupil and biggest fan Alex, liked more than a good plot twist, a turnabout of old, stale, even bigoted tropes.

When he'd reached the happy ending, Minoth found Alex soundly asleep, and for who knew how long already, so he sacked out on the adjacent couch himself, and so ended that not-so-fateful bump in the night.

Here I recommend another story by the, again, fabulous quartzguts.

This won't exactly happen, because dynamics, but we can dream.

Chapter 21: Abacab - "Now do you think I'm to blame? Tell me, do you think I'm to blame?!"

maybe i'm hurt
my afterglow red
a woman walks in beauty
did you hear what she said?

"Flora?"

"Yes, Mythra?"

"Can I ask you something kinda...rude?"

Flora straightened up and briskly flicked a few stray clods of dirt off of her hands. "I hope you won't be offended when I say that that's never stopped you before."

Mythra scoffed a laugh despite herself. "You're not wrong."

"I admire that about you, to a certain extent," Flora continued. "If I wasn't able to be as bold as I am without my due share of manners, I don't think I would do it. You put yourself, or rather your point, first, however, regardless. It's a different kind of gift, its own good fortune."

Caught off guard by the unexpected depth of what would usually just be an insult and no more, Mythra could only give a weak "Well..." This wasn't the turn she had expected the conversation to take at all.

Flora waved the tangent away with ease. "Never mind that. It can be for another time. What did you want to ask me?"

"So...what do you see in Addam, anyway?" Very blunt. Very bold. And yet, Flora was undaunted.

"Me? I see a good man who tries his best at whatever is asked of him, but doesn't always succeed, either in his execution or in treating the endeavor as more than just that: what was asked of him. He tries to walk fine lines that his shoulders are altogether too broad to follow, despite the lack of armor." It was a constant in-joke, only even humorous anymore by sheer dint of repetition.

Mythra shuffled her feet in the straw, trying to smooth it over but instead making it half tamped-down, half roughed-up. "Wow. That's a lot...quicker of an answer than I was expecting. I'll bet he's asked you the same thing."

Flora smiled wanly. "Of course. He wants to do right by you, but at times I think he knows it's possible that he just can't."

"Can't? He's just a...just a guy. And I'm just a gal, you know." Or maybe I'm just a guy too, I don't know, Mythra thought. Sure don't feel very feminine and fancy, never have. "How could it be so hard?"

"You make it sound like it's you in my place - that is, I mean to say, no offense, but I think that's him and I, more like, just a guy and just a gal trying to do right by you all."

Cocking her head to the side and letting the crops alone, Mythra gave what she hoped looked like and came off as a reassuring grin. "What's got you all bumbling all of a sudden?" The sigh she got in return didn't seem to have been very well stabilized by the gesture.

"Addam worries about the impact he'll have on the world. In other words, as you well know, he's afraid he'll do something drastic, that his place in history will grow to be too large. I also worry about that, but it's from the other direction - am I doing enough, will I ever do enough? A couple of years ago I would have said certainly it isn't enough, just to be Lady Origo, and a few years before that I would have said certainly it was."

Here was count two of giving a helping hand, or trying, at least. "I mean, that's not all you are. Really."

"Well, maybe, but I'm glad for the vote of confidence anyway, Mythra. When I was a teacher, I don't think it was wrong to think that that was some of the most important work I or anyone else could do, to help shape young people's minds and get them ready to make their own decisions, to leave their own impacts."

"Young people like I was?" Still am. "Younger than that," Flora said, breathing a touch of laughter into her words now. "I was only twenty-two by the time you first came around, and I may be sharper than anyone else we know, but that doesn't change the fact that I was still just a girl, then."

"From a girl to a gal, huh? Have I made it, too?" Mythra found herself asking such inane, conversation-bumper questions, and hated it, but she was still self-conscious from the straightforward yet inside-out compliment of earlier. Good enough for now.

"Not yet, Mythra, but I think you'll get there. You've come so far already - and he tells me that so often. That's back to my original point: Addam may have built an awful lot of it up in his head, but there really is a lot to you - to any Blade, but to you and the way you arrived especially. For him, that's scary. Not only does he have to be the Driver of an all-important Blade, that very Blade has powers like no other."

Oh. Of a sudden, Mythra felt a little sick. "I mean, he didn't have to, right? If he really didn't want to."

Flora's returning expression at that remark was uncomfortably fond, wistful, sorrowful.

"Mythra, love, I hope you've answered your own question now that you've you said that out loud."

"I...maybe. It's nothing. Finish what you were saying." Ever cordial as much as she was admirably strong-willed, Flora did as requested.

"It's like ruling, for him. Everything in his life comes back to analogy, duality. Fitting for him, then, that I should be the same way. I don't want to be famous, I just want to have done enough...Addam doesn't think about it quite that way, but it's close."

"If I had been your Driver..." Flora's pause seemed intentional, as if to allow Mythra to say what she knew was coming: "You've thought about that?"

"I find I end up thinking about everything, if you give me long enough. I'd like to say that I wouldn't have been afraid of your power, not one bit, but surely that's just my pride talking - and pride is nothing if not a little bit of fear, or envy, or jealousy into the mix."

"Are you afraid of me now?" She had to ask. Of course she did.

"Now? That's the trouble. A woman with a husband, two kids, and a home to take care of doesn't spend much time worrying about her daughter turning into a doomsday weapon. All I can do is hope, and try not to think about it too terribly much."

Mythra had been about to cut in with a sly retort of "I thought you said you think about everything, huh?" but swiftly became preoccupied with the more vital, long-arcing information she'd just received. "Daughter? Is that how you think of me?" Even, is that how you see me?

"If you don't mind, yes, I think that's about right. In general, as we've all well seen, the easy thing to do with miscellaneous individuals who cross the boundary between friend and family is to slap an 'Auntie' or an 'Uncle' on them and call it a day, but certainly there's no need for us to do that with you. I don't know. It doesn't much matter, because we're the only ones keeping tabs on us for the records - well, but I've just said it to you now, haven't I, and that's the matteringest part of it all."

The matteringest part of it all. Mythra really, really fucking liked that phrase, even if she didn't feel half so strongly positive about the subject matter it had come attached to. From one disagreeable topic to another, then.

"Not to keep talking about guys all the time, but what about Minoth, huh? Where does he figure in? I didn't hear you counting him."

Flora near about laughed out loud at that, a distorted barking sound that came borne on a face just as distorted and fraught. "You don't care about that, Mythra."

"I mean...don't I? I'm not trying to make it sound like I don't care about him, Addam, in all this. Him being my Driver, that is something. Whatever it is."

After her revelation about familial descriptors, Flora had been making to pack up and go inside, but now she'd been thrust the gift of a magnificent pause. "Whatever it is, indeed," she said, trying to sound satisfied with her pat turn of phrase. "I think that can answer your question, can't it?"

Mythra easily picked up on the motion tending away - that was what she was good at, perceiving things. "Sure. That doesn't have to be our problem, right? C'mon, let's go."

"Because what good are we, if all we're worried about is them? Him, and the other one, and the people who came in and changed our lives but don't actually stay around to keep after it?"

Oh. Digging in the dirt, now. "It's okay, Flora, I didn't mean to-" "No, no, it's fine. I'm fine. I'm getting all worked up over nothing. I like him, okay? I like him just fine."

"You're not lying?" "Not a wit. Just silly things left over from...way back when."

"I don't have them," Mythra said quietly. "Is that a bad thing?"

"I don't know. You tell me. They're all swirling around all the time, aren't they?"

The longer Mythra looked down, the more she felt her cheeks scrunch and tense, her eyes squint and her ears flatten.

"Flora, are you okay?" she heard herself ask.

"I'm fine, love, I promise. But only if you are."

Something had been unplugged without asking permission for ejection. Flora's arms wrapped around her, surprisingly strong, and she didn't want to have to wonder anymore. Was she okay, was she not okay? Did she like her Driver, did she resent him? Why was it her job? Why had he put so much of this on her? Who was "she", anyway? Who was Mythra? She felt so small, so young like Flora had said she wasn't but also had intimated that she was.

She wanted to stop thinking, wanted to stop those silly-not-silly things from swimming about uncontrolled and uninvited. So, she stopped.

Flora's hand stroked through her hair with purpose and surety, soothing and consoling. Where was her mother - her real mother, not this fakeout bullshit? Who had created her? The Architect was a man, a man like all men, probably full of hubris and regret. Even if the knowledge of pronouns had not been intrinsically installed in her, she'd have reasoned it out from context.

Not stopped. Never stopped. Well, if she couldn't know that for real, at least...at least she had someone who seemed to care, in a genuine and compulsedly nuanced way, here on the earthen place below Elysium. Maybe. Please, Father, Mother, anyone, could she stop now?

Flora hugged her tighter. Quiet, and peace.

The Speckled Monarchs were flitting so close she could hear them making their miniscule, usually inaudible chirps. To anyone else, they were always inaudible.

Stop, please. She felt the pulse of her diadem glowing. Had anybody, anything else done the same?

Finally, they stopped. Maybe it was only out of fear. Stop thinking, Mythra, stop thinking.

Flora began to hum softly. Nothing in particular, no melody, though Mythra picked out every pitch automatically and pinned them against a once-pristine mental graph of staff (she'd caught stray glimpses of Leo and Azzarn's lead sheets those few long years ago, and of course once she saw something she never forgot it).

As the notes tumbled on and on, Mythra found her mind clearing, her Core Crystal quieting. She wanted to say thank you, but that would break into the peace, blessed peace.

Oh, wait, she could hum along. In perfect sync, even, thanks to a little bit of Foresight. When they had done, Mythra stumbled a little as concerned making the ending organic.

One final compulsive thought thrust its way in. "Flora, even if, uh..." she started ungracefully. "Even if you are my mom, or whatever, you're not just my mom, either. You know?"

"I know. But I'm glad I have the chance to try. We both are. Now hush, the Tirkins are talking."

Were they? She'd take Flora's word for it.

In her relatively short time being awakened down on Alrest, Mythra still hadn't quite gotten used to the idea of dreaming. What was the point of being awake while you were supposed to be asleep? Whether you put stock in humans' need to sleep or not. She'd always load into the Elysium dream, that same lone tree on a pathetically perfect grassy plain. A bell would toll in the distance, and her Core Crystal would buzz with insistent memories in need of processing.

Most of the entries she just scrolled right past - Milton sneaking up like a bad habit to pinch her arm or butt? Didn't need to see that one again. Addam saying something sappy and honestly just plain stupid? Not important in the least. A little further beyond that, there'd be the encounters with people they'd helped.

Some of them were like Gio and Jerry, the regular pittance of humanistic tendencies, but some were more like Lyta and Kaeda, hopeful and worth hoping for. She'd project those out into the visual plane, study the cheerful faces, the wistful waves, and commit them to short-term memory for painting practice during waking hours.

One night when the landscape faded into existence, there was someone else, something else, already in the dream. The figure was purple, both in coloring and mystique, and sat not quite under the tree, like it knew it didn't belong there and couldn't fancy itself so familiar. It seemed half-formed, lonesome, pointless. The "Hey! What the hell are you doing in my dream?!" died in Mythra's throat as she approached it. She found she was more curious than repulsed, let alone afraid.

"Malos?" The bulky, foreboding armor was gone, leaving only the initial layer underneath, comprised of ribbed leggings and a high-collared shirt. The vestments were black and dark gray, but ripped through with volatile fuschia streaks - in particular, there were jagged wounds vertically aligned at a tilt to the right of the Core Crystal, which mirrored each gash.

Indol had not in fact made war or any other such grievance at the news that the Aegis which had been made arrived and awakened by one of their own was more dessicated than depowered, but then what would they have expected? There was no neat way to return to Core a Blade who had outgrown its Driver at its time of birth, and then a thousand-odd years before that. Out now, and never back in.

"This blows." His voice, softer and hollower than it had ever been in any of his manic outbursts (and there had been many), echoed around Mythra, but the lips didn't move nor seem at all to bring the sound forth.

"What does?" she asked, taking a hesitant seat some safe distance away from the carcass, since that was basically what it was.

"Being alive. Or-- No, this isn't being alive. Being half-alive. Why didn't you bastards just kill me and be done with it? Some partner you are."

Mythra drew her knees in to her chest and wrapped careful arms around them, hugging herself as if it would do any good. "Sounds to me like you know why."

"You care to elaborate on that?"

"Were you really alive before?" She imagined that if the body were imbued with movement it would be propping hand to hip.

"Yeah, I was alive. I breathed and I ate and I killed shit, like I was made to do. I had to experience the tedium of being, just like I said."

"Oh." She stood up and turned away from him, laying a hand on the tree's synthetic bark. "What?"

"Even if none of this is real, I was about to think that maybe you'd changed. But things that aren't alive can't change, can they?"

"Whatever. I'm outta here." There was a brief pinch in the atmosphere, like the Malos speaking down from the globe's perimeter was clenching his fist, and then the air relaxed. Mythra looked down out of the corner of her eye, and the body was still there.

"Ugh. I'm gonna have to look at this thing every time from now on?" she muttered, mostly to herself.

"Hey, still here," the ever-obnoxious voice projected in, jarring her ears. "What the hell?!" There was no wind against which to whip her hair.

"Things that aren't alive also don't have the power to go anywhere, apparently. If you wanna get rid of me, you'd better leave yourself, princess."

Scowling, Mythra moved a hand to her Core Crystal and applied more force than was necessary to unload the dreamscape. It might have been a shitty little dream, but at least it had actually been hers, and hers alone, up until now.

What's this? Me making one of the Origo spouses tell Mythra they admire/respect something about her that's usually construed as bad? Sounds an awful lot like something that actually happens in-game fairly word for word. An accident, an accident, as ever, as ever !!!

And about Malos, well...you knew he'd be back, didn't you? I even accidentally foreshadowed it by linking a fic recommendation in the wrong chapter. :D

Chapter 22: The Cinema Show - "I have crossed between the poles, and for me there's no mystery."

There may not be anything in this world that makes me feel more violence than the fact that Addam's "Someone's in a good mood today!" line, which directly precedes his "Just dying to see me in action, aren't you, Minoth?" line, is in fact for Mythra and not Minoth. I should have been recognizant of the pattern in the sound files far sooner than I was, but still. Utterly disgraceful. Also, I've seen Addam's particle effects for his sword swings get stuck on purple numerous times...kinda suspicious, if you ask me ;).

It was an odd occasion in the Origo household for Minoth to be the one out on a jaunt, but indeed here he was, returning from Gormott after Hugo had specially requested the aid of his entymological expertise in setting up a nature preserve in that vast and beautiful land. Annexation wasn't quite in order, but Hugo had an eye for the future, and knew that it would serve his people well for preparations to be made towards an eventual acquisition of more fertile and habitable land, should Mor Ardain's rampant industrialization one day consume the Titan's breath from without.

Brighid couldn't be spared, so Minoth and Haze together made a rough approximation of her botany knowledge instead. It was an overall pleasant excursion over the course of a couple weeks, with the only wrinkle coming when they started to work farther out than was convenient to journeying daily from the fledgling inn in Torigoth, and tussled about who would keep watch at night.

"You're not strong enough without Lora, Haze. Any monster could come snatch you up without so much as a peep from either of you," was the Flesh Eater's rationale. "But Master Minoth, you need to sleep, I don't!" the Blade argued back. And then the air was oddly empty between them.

For whatever reason, he wasn't as comfortable speaking with just Haze without a buffer, whether that be Lora, Jin, Addam, or even Aegaeon - the only natural conclusion was that she just didn't bother being as outwardly mature as the rest of them, Hugo included. Mikhail had never been much interested, and Milton followed his friend's lead in this instance, so Haze was the only standout. He'd have to work on that.

"Jin and Lora would never forgive me if something happened to you." Haze shook her head insistently. "I pray it never comes to that, but I know they would."

He looked away. "I would never forgive myself."

When he tilted his head back, Haze was frowning not in consternation but in concentration. Then, she perked up.

"I've got it! I'll promise you that nothing will happen if you promise me that I can braid your hair in the morning. How's that?"

Confused, Minoth could only laugh. "I guess that means you're pretty determined! Fine. It's a deal."

He settled back against the far wall of the hollowed-out old tree in which they had set down their supplies. In the end, it was she that fell asleep, listening to a retelling of one of her favorite stories from that old adventure, and Minoth, alone with his own thoughts, drew her close so that if he chanced to nod off, the monsters'd have to get through him first.

When they reached Aletta once again after embarking on a chill early morning (Torna and Gormott were passing near each other at the time), Minoth paid the Titan ship's captain and offered Haze a steadying arm, which she accepted, for the step back onto the harbor's solid stone. He had expected that she'd see him through the garrison in agreeable silence before departing for Lasaria herself, but instead she followed him in, citing the want of a glass of water and chattering and humming about this and that.

They ascended into the upper parlor, and Minoth was about to give a courteous farewell before heading to his room when Alex burst through the inner door.

"Auntie Haze, Uncle Minoth!" he cried, making alarming speed towards them to be stopped only by the soft embrace of Haze's robes.

"Master Alex, it's wonderful to see you!" Well what did she expect at Addam's house, a flying Brog? By now, Flora had caught up, a bag of papers and provisions slung over her shoulder.

"We're going to Auresco!" Alex chirped happily. "Auntie Haze, do you want to come?"

Her answering smile was just as bright. "I'd love to! Lead the way, Master Alex."

"Oh, good," Flora said. "I was a litle worried about miscellaneous wildlife attacks along the way, so your help will be much appreciated, Haze. Addam's been meaning to get better roadways installed, but that's just one of many things that's keeping him swamped on a day like this, and my aide's visiting her sister in Heblin." She was rummaging about in the pack as she spoke, quite groundlessly doubting her own meticulousness.

"Flora, take it from me. You didn't forget anything." She looked up, flustered, then relaxed into a worn smile. "Thank you, Minoth. Okay Alex, Haze - we're off!" And they were out the door.

So Haze hadn't needed a drink after all, she was just being overly gregarious, as usual. It took all kinds, at any rate. The hallway blockage gone, Minoth continued his course down the manor stairwell - or he tried to, at least.

"Ah ah ah, not so fast," Addam boisterously warned as he poked his cheery annoyance into the doorway and got a grip on Minoth's arm, earning a glare from the Flesh Eater. "What? I missed you! Am I not allowed to miss my dear friend? Oh come on, sit with me up here, don't go down into your dungeon."

"I'd begrudge your moods less if they happened less, my prince." And yet, the grip stayed.

Addam only laughed as he strolled back into the master bedroom. "Do you need a flat surface to work on, or- no, never mind, I've got contracts to read, so I'll just hang out over here." He flopped with a markedly non-noble grace onto the bed, having swept a pile of papers off the desk that stood against the opposite wall.

Minoth silently cursed Addam's masterful awareness that of course he had whichever manuscript he was currently working on on his person, and didn't actually need to be down in his own study to write. Resigning himself to sit, he remarked, "I didn't remember this being out here."

Addam nodded. "Indeed, we only recently moved it. I found it's easier for me to work and keep Alex company if I'm out here, and there's not much point in keeping up an imposing study after all." He returned to a preparatory paging through of the documents, and Minoth began to pragmatically disarmor himself before finally producing a notebook and quill.

He'd start with notes about the final assessment he and Haze had made that morning from afar - the Titan ship had been too unsteady in its foolhardy rush to risk wasting his ink and paper. And so, several hours passed rather idly (not to say idyllically).

"Say, Minoth." He gave a sound of confirmation without turning in his seat. "Does that under-armor you've got on come off?"

"Pretty strange question to ask, Prince." Addam ignored the brush-off and clarified further. "I just wonder, if it didn't, might there be injuries underneath that hadn't healed, and you none the wiser? Some abrasion or contusion or other."

Minoth froze at the thought, but to the space behind him offered only a surface-level "I've got it taken care of." To his surprise, the prince was satisfied with that response. He was getting milder in his adulthood - the adolescent Origo would have made a much more vigorous pursuit of the topic he'd brought to hand.

Minoth's quill scratched idly at the nigh-blank page glaring up at him from the desk. He'd set aside the latest fable for young Alex to pore over - were those even really age-appropriate anymore? Minoth was no educator, but there was nothing he hated more than an author that pandered, condescended to their readers.

It was the same principle that had him here blocked for progress on his dramatization of their journey of six years prior. The fact that he'd been the one to deal the crucial blow to Malos...how could you write impartially, academically, respectfully about history when you were a key part of it? And yet, he couldn't just neatly snip himself out of the story.

A dark corner of him itched to record for posterity the sharpest impulses of his hatred for Amalthus, to prepare a blistering account that would inspire the suspicion the slimy Quaestor deserved. After all, who else could lay claim to those emotions and really get them across? It was different with treatises like that, the fair measure of personal stake and voice.

Still, who would read such a pamphlet? The only way for it to be of any use would be to attempt to distribute it en masse, and then surely some monk of the Praetorium would get hold of it and suffer their indolence to alert a higher-up (a sure way to promotion). Pseudonym or not, Amalthus would recognize the pointed, vendetta-esque attack on his name and character in an instant, despite never having read a word of Minoth's writing.

He'd have to find a different way to leach away the disgust, like pus from a wound. Even being a Flesh Eater, he'd never nursed an injury for so long as to never let it scar. How many years had it been?

He had a home now, though his traumatized mind never liked to admit it. Addam had been kind enough to take him in - it wasn't like he had any useful talent to lend to the household at large, besides general musculature and a half-decent head on his shoulders. He didn't trust himself to any particularly strenuous manual labor, atrophying as he was. Indeed, perhaps his hiding behind that excuse had only furthered a self-fulfilling prophecy, but all's well that ended with him sequestered away from overly jovial eyes.

Well...did he really like being alone (being lonely, some pesky synapse insisted)? Was it so bad, letting somebody in?

"Addam?" "Mhm?" the prince murmured absently. "It does come off." Since the experiment it had, that is, as real, normal, human clothing would, non-regeneratable though still remarkably hardy to wear.

Attention obtained, Addam laid down his reading material. "I thought as much. Did you want me to have a look?"

Wordlessly, Minoth got up from the desk chair and moved to the end of the bed, then turned back around. As he sat down, he motioned with loose hands to the ether lines running diagonally across his back from the middle of his neck, antiparallel to his deltoids. From the gestured indication, Addam saw that those lines were more or less seams in the garment, conveniently positioned to be just within proper reach of the wearer's hands as they made to "unzip". He placed his hands over the center of Minoth's shoulders, waiting for a final grant of consent, which came after a still moment.

Addam kept careful, firm, steady grasp, using his thumbs to apply pressure down the length of the seams until he reached the ether desposits on Minoth's scapulas. A slight hiss of release came from those same circular points, and the prince gently removed his hands. The Flesh Eater took a deep breath and ran his own fingers under the catsuit's collar, pulling it off from the front and letting it fall away in the back, removing the upper triangular piece of the leather.

"Are you sure you want to do this? We don't have to if you don't want to," Addam cautioned. He could hear a breathy grin escape from Minoth.

"I'm sure, Addam." Ever so slowly, he stood up and turned around, counter-clockwise so as to lead with the mark already apparent on his face.

"Titan's foot..." came an awed whisper from Addam as the prince inched closer to the end of the bed. He supposed that was one way to look at it.

Even without looking himself, he knew the pattern of scarring that twisted across his chest, from gashes near the Core Crystal to slits lacing his pectoral muscles. An eerie match for his facial scar lay over where a human's heart would be - they'd attempted to incise there, but abandoned it halfway through. The whole thing was a monument to his cursed state.

Each one, from the finest hairline marks to the widest literal gouges, glowed with the ether that bled out - he'd tried to heal it over, even going so far as asking Haze what she would do about such a hypothetical injury, but it was no use: his life force was leaking out where they'd already stripped it from him once. If he concentrated, he could tone down its vibrancy, but not by much, and it took an awful lot of doing.

"I'm sorry, I must be staring."

Minoth snorted. "You think I would have taken it off if I thought you weren't going to look?"

Addam's lips twitched into a smile, and he gazed up into his friend's eyes. "Do you want me to take mine off, so we're even?"

At Minoth's flummoxed expression, he quickly added, "No, it's nothing like that. I stopped bothering with the one-piece years ago." He was referring, of course, to his own black compression under-layer, one that to Minoth's knowledge had always been connected down through to a pair of similarly tight shorts.

Before Minoth could make a rejoinder, Addam had pulled the garment over his head, thoroughly mussing his hair. His cheeks were faintly flushed, and the way he was grinning as he blatantly ignored the state of his hair was adorable. Minoth wanted to kiss him.

"You look like you want to kiss me." Oh, Architect in Elysium. The grin was only getting bigger. "Go on, if you like." And why was it so precipitous, so needing to be said aloud? Because he hadn't, not since...since.

So he did, leaned down with an uncertain hand reaching for Addam's chin and closed the awkward distance. It was nothing special, nothing too grand, just...peaceful. Nice. He didn't need to do it again, but maybe he wanted to.

Addam tugged on his other arm, and Minoth made to sit down next to him, but apparently that wasn't what the prince had in mind, as he found himself tumbling down on top of pale skin and golden eyes. When the limbs had cleared, they were chest-to-chest with faces nearly touching. How had this situation even seen the ghost of a fit to transpire?

"Prince..." he mumbled softly, not knowing what to do with his hands.

"Is this alright?" Addam asked with true concern as he slowly danced his own fingers along the new border between skin and leather on Minoth's back.

He didn't want to think about it. So, instead, he kissed Addam again. Well, there was an answer, after all. "Dandy," he said, and meant it.

Addam gave an affectionate chuckle. "Thanks for letting me know. After all these years, sometimes I still feel like I'm only just beginning to understand you."

"Call me an international man of mystery," Minoth offered congenially, grinning into the general area of Addam's mouth.

The prince ran a distracted hand through the short hair along the Blade's temples. Before the lingering touch lulled him into a midday nap, he could have sworn he heard a gentle thought voiced aloud: "I'd like to call you my own."

Let's talk about Minoth's ether lines! Our cowboy has:

- those mentioned on the back of his neck, down to the shoulder blades, connecting in to the circular, volatile deposits
- the banners/ribbons/SATA cables attached to the deposits are part of his jacket, but do hook in with the grommet-like cover
- the two angled delineations between chest and stomach with the four lines on each side that go down to his hips
- the other side of the loop for those angled lines, hidden underneath the back of his jacket
- the curving lines between his hips and crotch, basically big loops over his leg joints
- the circles on the tops of his wrists right between forearm and hand
- four-pointed star shapes echoing those that appear on his armbands, directly underneath on his upper arms
- the roughly diamond-shaped outlines on the outer side of his thighs, as well as the circle cutout in the middle of each shape
- the chest/collar piece has two lines on it which are more or less "wirelessly" connected

...and likely more that I will invent at every immediate occasion after this when I draw him. We'll allow this one segment to be non-definitive, shall we say.

As an aside, no straight man would ever wear pants that high-cut, or assless chaps for that matter. You know it's true.

Chapter 23: Watcher of the Skies (Watcher of All) - "From life alone to life as one, think not now your journey's done."

"Where are the men?" the little prince at last took up the conversation again. "It is a little lonely in the desert..." "It is also lonely among men," the snake said.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Most times when Mythra came back to the Elysium dream, the Malos-shaped object that inhabited it would just lie there as lifeless as ever, sometimes flopped over on belly or side, sometimes in a strange prone position, and sometimes, as the years wore on, sitting up in the tree.

The flashes of vulnerable Core littered over the broad chest stretched closed, little by little, and his strength had apparently returned enough to let him boost himself up into the branches, though how much time that endeavor had actually taken Mythra had no way of knowing.

When they did talk, it was usually just the exchange of a few short, sharp sounds, and they'd never get more than a handful of sentences in before one would call the other an asshole, or adjacent, and Mythra, if she wasn't fed up enough to just leave, would stomp down to the creek, or knock Malos out of the tree, or both.

The first time she'd found him up there, she'd given a half-hearted "Congrats," and he'd echoed down, "Yeah, sure. It's pathetic and you know it."

"I found out I'm, like, actually good at baking today," Mythra said idly, to change the subject or maybe to carry it on, sliding down to sit at the base of the tree.

"Yeah? And why shouldn't you be?" he snorted. "Because I'm awful at cooking," she snorted back, and they were really partners, weren't they? "Oh. Lame."

The way he said it didn't carry the same contempt as, say, Brighid or Milton or even Mikhail, but it had a different one in its place, probably one for the very act of making food and the possibility of being "bad" at something that was so, infuriating as it was, algorithmic. Well, but baking was moreso that way, which was probably why she was good at it.

Mythra worked her fingers in the grass for a moment, wishing there were flowers there to chain together, then spun up on her heel and sauntered out of the dream. "Biiitch-!" Malos called after her.

The next time she came back, there were dandelions, yellow and fierce and a little ugly, cropped up all over the hill, and Mythra couldn't help but be reminded of her petulant whim from their last encounter. "Kind of a useless simulation, if all it can do from my subconscious is dumb shit like this."

"I put them there," Malos said, quieter than he'd ever been, even here in the dreamscape. "You?"

"Well sure, it's my Elysium too - especially since I'm here all the time and you only come once in a blue moon." She hated that he was right - why shouldn't they share a dream? Maybe they'd always shared the same one, even before they'd killed him, and just never crossed paths. How had he known she'd wanted flowers, though? Probably just context clues.

"They always bugged me about that." "Whazzat?" Malos's voice drifted down, lazy.

"They all - Addam, and Minoth, and whoever - thought I should understand you so well, just because we're both Aegises. It was more of an obligation then, though. Now...you think maybe we do understand each other better than anyone else would?"

There was a mighty scoffing noise. "If you want, partner. This group therapy sure isn't the highlight of my existence, and it's a miserable one, as we both know." He was lying boldfacedly, and she could tell because...because they really weren't so different, were they, after all.

"Hey, Malos." "'Sup?" "You remember the first time I found you here?"

"Unfortunately," he said, popping all the wrong consonants.

"You ready to hear me say the rest of what you didn't let me finish then?"

The skybox rolled its eyes. "Sure, sure, get all sappy on me. I could always tell that was what your Driver was like."

Mythra grimaced. "That's...what I want to talk to you about. Your Driver, Amalthus..."

"He's a creep," Malos finished, stealing the words right out of her mouth like the jerk he was.

"Well, yeah, but not just because he got all dudebro-y on me the first time he saw me. 'And she's a woman, too. Quite lovely indeed,'" she mocked, wobbling her head in its socket and turning out her arm with twice the necessary amount of fop.

As she had expected, her partner laughed, but not just a short huff or a whiff of the head, a bone-deep expression of true amusement that seemed to shake the tree and the very ground upon which she was mounted. "Watch it, buster, I'm standing down here!"

"Sorry, sorry, it's just-- You?! 'Quite lovely indeed'? That guy's the gayest homophobe I ever saw, but even guys who like men have some taste!"

Despite the double implicit insult (she imagined he meant to say "taste in women" but wanted to cap the sentence off the way he had), Mythra felt an overwhelming urge to grin up at him, wherever he was, but she wasn't quite sure he could see. He had to be able to, right? But anyway.

"That's the part of you that's good, the part that can laugh at him, the part that has taste. Or, no...the part that's good is the part that's you. Everything else came from him, I think."

"Everything?" Malos's tone carried half lingering amusement and half threatening edge.

"I haven't done the math, Malos," Mythra quipped dryly. "But if I don't even feel like I'm alive, living in Addam's house with his family, then I don't see how you can blame yourself for being...not feeling your best, if all you ever were was a tool for that creep when you could walk on your own two feet."

"Who said I blame myself?" his voice cut just as much as thundered down, altogether too sharp for them to continue having a civilized conversation. But, Mythra stood her ground.

"You might, you might not, and whatever it is, that's okay. I'm just saying...think about it."

Malos was silent for a moment, then changed the subject, or so it appeared. "You remember that Ice Blade, the one with the edgelord hair?"

"Jin?" she prompted, surprised. "Yeah...Jin." The name was spoken almost reverently. "I think he was alive. He had, what's the word - conviction."

"What do you mean by that?" Mythra was on the ground twisting together dandelions now.

"Well, the other ones - the blue guy with the tubehead and the purple one with her tits hanging out - they seemed pretty not-alive to me, by your whole rationale. They were just there to fawn over little twerpy His Majesty. Just there to exist in their roles."

"And you're saying you didn't get that impression from Jin? Not that I disagree, I'm just curious what your thought process is," she added hastily.

"I just remember the way he looked at me. Even with the dopey mask. The way he said 'Why the damned bloodlust?' It almost made me want to think about it."

It was Mythra's turn to roll her eyes. "Yeah, because we both know how much you hate doing that."

"Your sarcasm is no match for my nihilism," he sneered, almost affectionately.

"How do you know Jin didn't get that from his Driver?"

If Malos's ambient personality had lips, he would have been chewing the lower one. "I dunno. It just seemed that way."

"Jin and Lora's relationship...I'm not exactly sure it's healthy. They're a little codependent, in a weird way. Even though he's the one taking care of her, he takes a lot of direction from that responsibility. Like, a lot. They run a little mini-orphanage now, and I don't think he knows quite what to do with taking care of a child that isn't Lora."

"And what about the other one? Ether-stopper lady."

"Haze gets neglected," Mythra said matter-of-factly. "Lora pretends that she doesn't have a favorite, but she does. Even though those two are basically dating. I can't really blame her, but still, Haze suffers from a different affliction with some of the same symptoms."

"Look at Doctor Mythra with the diagnoses," Malos sing-songed menacingly. "Gonna turn that analysis ray on yourself anytime soon?"

"I already told you," she replied evenly. "I'm still figuring it out."

"Ah-ah, that's not what you told me. You said you didn't feel like you were alive, you didn't say you were doing anything about it."

"Well..." Mythra let the dandelion chain fall from her fingers and crossed her arms. "I'm still not sure I want to. It's kinda just like a holding pattern, I guess."

"Holding right there with ya, partner." But he wasn't with her, he was...somewhere else. Something else. He couldn't even feel the flowers here. Not that she made mention of that observation. Instead...

"Oh really? That's...well, that's not too bad to know, Malos. Thanks." She walked over to his stasized body, brushed a few errant hairs out of his eyes, and placed the flower crown on top.

"Hey! What are you- Mythra! Take that off! I mean it! Take that off right now!"

"Sorry!" she called back over her shoulder as she turned to leave.

"Oh, for the love of-- I am so gonna kick your ass when I get out of here! You hear me? Mythraaa-!"

For the first few months of Alex Origo's life, Aletta Manor had been brimful with people from top to bottom, and whenever that was true, though he could easily get a space to himself, they weren't immediate to find. But, after that summer had passed, his Uncle Hugo and Auntie Brighid and Uncle Aegaeon had returned to their home Titan of Mor Ardain, and the remaining guests clung closer together.

Auntie Lora, Uncle Jin and Auntie Haze started making routine trips to the Lasaria region, clearing out debris and preparing the area for the homes they wanted to build. Sometimes Mikhail went with them, and even Milton too. Within the year, their work had been completed, and they all, with the exception of Milton, moved out there, after waiting to celebrate Alex's first birthday. The Ardainian branch of his family had returned for that occasion, and though of course his memory wasn't all that strong yet, it was clear that the gathering was a happy one.

By that time the next year, his father had begun making trips to Gormott with Milton as part of his noble relations work. Eventually, Milton stayed there permanently, helping his countrymen in much of the same way as Addam had helped him. Occasionally it was his mother who journeyed to Auresco, taking along any female companion who was visiting, or sometimes a male, if not just her aide Emilia.

He had been to Auresco too, and liked the bustle of the place. At least even though there was such constant change there, it was always a lively atmosphere. Sometimes he visited Auntie Lora's kids, but they were all older than him.

Yes, Alex liked his life, and loved his parents. But through his eight years of life, if he was feeling a little out of it, there remained always one person he could count on.

"Uncle Minoth?"

No answer in the library, which was also devoid of a Brighid or a Lora to point him in the right direction. That meant he was in his study, and that meant he was busy. Darn it. Well, it couldn't hurt to ask.

Alex circled back out of the library and entered the lowest level of the manor stairwell, trying to tread lightly on the stone steps. Since they were in fact stone and not metal, there was no clanging noise, but still. Alex hadn't been coddled despite all those around who could have had a hand in doing so, and he knew well the value of being considerate.

Once outside what used to be the chief manservant's quarters, Alex took a deep breath and wondered why it was that he was so nervous.

"Uncle Minoth?" he called out. "Yours ever!" came the booming reply. So he wasn't too preoccupied, but was enough so that he hadn't gotten up to open the door. Alex had learned to announce himself rather than knock.

The windowless room was dark, lit only by the faintest of ether lamps at the desk. Minoth liked it dark; it was why he had chosen the basement room, after all.

"So? Big news, or have you gotten yourself into trouble?" He hadn't looked up from his current stack of manuscript paper, quill working away.

"It's...neither."

Quill stopped, stool swiveled. "Minoth is at your service," the very man proclaimed theatrically before crossing his arms.

Alex bit his lip in preparation for his impending broach of topic. "Uncle Minoth, do you...like your name?"

"Well now...I'd say it serves me well enough. Comes from the root word for bull. What do you think? Am I a raging bull?"

Alex was all grave seriousness. "No...when you're happy you're like a big warm night full of stars, and when you're mad you're like a storm that nobody can guess where it's heading."

Minoth hung onto every word of the analogies. "I'm sensing you've got a little more to say about that." And indeed, Alex's nose was still screwed up in concentration.

"When you're sad...it's like everything is cold and empty, and the stars have gone out, and you don't know when you'll see the sun again because everything's just dark."

"And you think this is how I feel, or you're describing how you feel?"

Alex flushed, and Minoth chuckled at the sight. "I can handle a little affection, you know - unlike a certain prince I won't name. It's always the waterworks with him." This coaxed out a more comfortable smile and eased the tension in the room.

"Seems like you've come to talk a while. It's much too dark in here for a young fellow like you, and you're standing there all knock-kneed. I'm afraid mine's not the place for conversation."

"Can we go out on the moor?" Alex asked quickly, his tone ticking up.

"Depends on the weather. Were you watching it?"

Alex nodded, seriousness turning over into enthusiasm. "It's clear outside, and the sun wasn't too strong."

"That means no particularly vicious varmints on the prowl. Still, guess I'd better take these." Minoth stood, wincing as he cracked out a knot in his neck, and shrugged on his jacket and holster belt. As he looked upon, Alex suddenly remembered his lingering embarrassment of earlier.

"Oh, I forgot. We don't have to go." "Hmm?" "Weren't you pretty busy with your writing?"

Minoth laughed and ruffled the boy's hair. "You're a bleeding heart, just like your father. I can spare the afternoon." Of course, he could spare much more time and effort than just that of a single afternoon, but he'd rather not think about that right about now.

So, in agreeable silence, they wended their way back up two floors to the kitchen. As Minoth rummaged around in the icebox, Alex aped him by peering inside the cupboards. Head still hidden inside the chilly container, the Flesh Eater called back, "I can handle the supplies. You go let your parents know I'm taking you."

There wasn't much to pilfer for snacks anyway, just a bunch of Moonbeam Bananas from Addam's last trip to Gormott (Milton liked those so Minoth left them alone), a half-empty crate of Hot Oranges (nobody really liked these), a handful of Cranberry Bells, some dried Amber Sweetfish, a rind of Armu cheese, and a crust of Flora's homemade Ruska Flour bread.

"Taking you where?" Flora had emerged from across the hall and was making brisk pace to the icebox to yank on a central strand of Minoth's ponytail. "Stop poking around, I'm making your favorite." She tsked at the wiry gray hair with which she was rewarded.

"Dinner already? I must have lost track of the time, and never mind the sunlight at this time of year. Young Alex! You'd better sharpen up to keep your fool uncle in check."

For whatever reason, Flora could tell that Minoth was bluffing, but against what she didn't know. "Yes, I was just about to start," she answered, wading through his histrionics.

Alex stood silent, debating the merits of an afternoon - no, evening - on the moor with his uncle versus tasty helpings of Sweet Feris Dumplings. His mother could have been referring to either of their favorite dishes, so it stood to reason that she meant they'd be having a dumpling night, with soup too. Flora's eyes softened at their sheepish expressions, and Alex jumped at the chance.

"Uncle Minoth and I were going to have an adventure out on the moor." An adventure. Silly Alex, but what else is a young boy to think of such an excursion? "You don't mind awfully, do you Mum?"

She frowned, to his chagrin. "It's dangerous this time of evening. I trust you both, but..."

"My dear Lady Origo, either you do or you don't," Minoth cut in. "You know I'd never let anything happen to the prince of my prince's heart."

"How far?" "Only up to Hyber - beyond the pass, into the village." Satisfied, Flora nodded.

"I don't need to tell you that if he's not back safe we're going to have words, Minoth." Her feistiness wasn't just for show, that much was clear. "Addam's just doing some work with the accounts tonight, so we'll save the big dinner for tomorrow."

Beaming, Alex reached up to give his mother a kiss on the cheek, and they were off.

Out of the whole 100K+ words in this story, I'm probably most proud of the first scene in this chapter. Let me know what you thought!

Chapter 24: Camino Royale - "Only the fool learns to get through..."

the people whose arms you stumble into
the ones you talk to when you can't sleep
those are the people to have around
the ones worth fighting to keep

They wound a careful path, leaving packs of Armus undisturbed and making mocking sounds at the Tirkin from safe distance. Minoth pointed out to Alex how to discern a Moramora that had clung to the side of the cliff, and how to identify sleeping Flamii by the leg they were standing on.

It was nothing overly educational, and certainly not a substitute for the wits-about-you training sessions Addam tried to get in on a rare good day when there wasn't field work, but it was something. Minoth kept his daggers sheathed as often as possible, only using them sparingly to nudge up a rock that was hiding some particularly scintillating entomology. Funny how he enjoyed both that and the oft-conflated etymology. One of the Architect's lighter choices, he supposed.

They sat by the shore of Lake Sarleigh to eat their morsels, tossing cranberries into the Gradies' jumping mouths. And, then, the pair paused at Lett Bridge to look back over the moor, and Minoth abruptly rejoined their conversation of earlier.

"You see, unlike you, Blades never get to grow up. I came out of the Core the same fine specimen you see before you now. Maybe a little weaker, maybe a little shorter hair, but, for the most part, the same. No room for uncertainty about your name, or your purpose. You get one from your very Core, and the other from your Driver." A shudder came at the latter. "And, most Blades never get to grow old either. A real joy, that."

Alex recalled vividly the hushed conversations his uncle and father had had a few times a year, then most months, now every few weeks. They knew he was aware of them, but they didn't know that he'd heard snatches of the actual content here and there. Talk of gray hairs, atrophying muscles, decaying Core Crystals. Surprisingly, it was Addam who pushed for Mythra to try and do something about it, and Minoth who shut him down every time.

He had been there, once. He'd been just three years old, but somehow the memory was exceptionally vivid. His mother was rustling up the dishes after dinner, and Mythra was gossiping with Milton on the roof. Minoth and Addam were engaged in muted, tense conversation, and then a voice was raised.

"Is that it? Is my brokenness the only gleam?"

"There is surely much else that I love," his father said quietly, bracingly in attempt but fast losing his hold. "Surely," his uncle shot back, mocked and balking.

He got up from the table, stiffly, and was brusquing his way out when Flora came and hefted Alex on her hip to take him in for a bath. The Blade gave the toddler a funny look, and Alex made sure to make his best funny look back (the already funny effect of just being a toddler notwithstanding), because whatever was going on he knew that he liked the man with the shouty voice very much.

Instead of slamming the door into the outside, Minoth took the stairwell down, mollified, somewhat. How could he, a Blade, a Flesh Eater, ever be loved in that way? Gently, quietly, softly, for a child's ears to hear?

It seemed that that was often the way to get him to calm down: through his more playful heart, or conscience, or whichever. Alex learned from quite an early age that he could raise his arms in the air to be picked up all he wanted, but his mother wouldn't always let him up, so he had to be patient. His father would want to, but quite honestly held him too carefully for it to be good cuddles.

With Uncle Minoth, though, he only had to screw up his concentration in order to school his features into a look of unrefusable supplication as he reached out grabby hands, and after a few seconds of pouting on both sides, up he would go, and be held so close - he felt very clever and very important each time he achieved this feat.

Sometimes the man with the shouty voice actually shouted, too. Loud enough for Alex and Mythra to hear from her room on the first floor down where they were painting. Well, she was painting, a scene of people gathered together in common harmony for no reason other than just to be, to be companionable. Alex was just chaotically splashing bits of color on the canvas, purples and golds and greens and whatever Mythra wasn't using that he thought looked good.

When he peered up at her work to not-so-subtly beg attention, then tentatively raise a finger towards her back, she stabbed the tail end of a brush swiftly in his direction without looking where she was pointing.

"Don't you dare get paint on my armor, you little twerp. What is it?" And he turned the raised finger back around to gesture at his canvas, and she looked boredly down, but then her gaze lifted up into quiet appraisal.

"Does it look cool?" "Huh? Y-yeah. It's really cool, Alex. What's it supposed to be?"

"I don't know," he hummed, satisfied, scanning the finger now over a row of blobs of paint before selecting a blood red that he slashed with abandon across the center of his work.

"Maybe it's a super-cool mega-Blade. Does anyone ever try to make those?" Before Mythra could answer, she found that it was a rhetorical question. "I think maybe they should. That would be awesome."

So there they were, Mythra left to ponder the philosophical and ethical implications of a seven-year-old's casual whims of fascination while her work dried into a state of immutability before she had even half done with it. That was when the shouting came.

"Why do you want so badly to fix me? Maybe I don't need to be fixed!" Oh, great. Captain Cowboy was yelling again. Honestly, even Addam didn't deserve that; he never yelled back. Not until tonight, that is.

"I want to fix you, if you must call it that, because you don't deserve to have to be the way that you are! You think this scar makes you? You think you only deserve to be here if you've been abused first, as a basis? Minoth..."

Mythra could hear her Driver slump back down into his chair, and filled in the rest of the idiosyncratic sequence: he got halfway to throwing his head on top of crossed arms and becoming unresponsive before stopping himself and tilting his chin up sideways to peer tiredly, haggardly, at whoever he was talking to.

"Don't you remember how you were before it happened? Don't you think that I remember? I'm not asking if you remember who you were because you were and are the same person."

Minoth's reply was a sneer: "I always have been."

Flora spoke then. "Minoth, he's not trying to change you back. Addam is saying that you were still you, still the same person he cares about, before this happened to you. Certainly, I don't remember, I never knew, but I believe him. I believe in you, in the two of you."

Finally, it was Minoth's turn to actually cut back in. "Oh, don't you give me that look, woman. You're part of the problem - and you know it."

"Me?" Flora was shocked, but for the most part undaunted. "Minoth, I-" "Save it. I don't need to hear it."

Minoth always walked with a peculiar lightness to his step, a self-aware semi-grace, but his boots stomping away were heavy now, with nary a thought to who or what they disturbed as they did so.

"No," Mythra found herself saying.

"Huh?" Alex didn't look up as he caught her soft tone. Whether it had been hushed out of choice, necessity, or fear, she'd never know.

"No, Alex. I don't think they should."

Perhaps they shouldn't, but they had. "Don't take it so hard, Alex."

The boy snapped up, looking guilty, and Minoth's voice softened. "I'll be around for a while yet. Probably still longer than you, if I'm lucky." But what kind of twisted back-asswards luck...?

Alex abandoned his façade of innocence then. "But don't you hurt all the time? Isn't your ether off balance? Why don't you let Auntie Mythra try and heal you? I don't like it when you're in pain!"

The only response was an "Ah." as Minoth turned to the Somelia nests that decorated the way through to Hyber Pass. He sniped at them half-heartedly, without any of his usual flair - not that there could be much flair in killing off insect nests before their contents spilled out. A few Riiks jumped in their path, and Minoth grabbed Alex's hand to jog past them.

Hyber Pass, the end of Olnard's Trail, was where he had first met Lora and Hugo, along with Jin, Haze, Brighid, Aegaeon, and Mythra. He noted it to himself, but nothing more.

Alex rankled at the continued silence. "Aren't you going to answer my question?"

"A good question deserves a good answer, does it not? In consequence, and so on. I'm thinking." That would have to be good enough for now.

"Mireille!" Minoth called out once they had reached Hyber proper.

"Is that you, Minoth?" The petite, hunched lady peered at them from the inn's doorstep as they came closer.

"The very one. And I've brought young Alex with me."

"Ah," she smiled. "Forgive an old woman's hope that it might have been Addam. He hasn't been to show me his work in ages, and I do miss the company."

"You're in luck then. I was hoping we'd get to sit with you a while." At Alex's questioning glance, he added, "Rest until the stars come out."

"Why, of course! We haven't any guests tonight, and it's so dreadfully lonely now that Teo's passed on." Since no response came from Minoth, Alex earnestly put in, "That sounds very sad. I'm sorry."

"Quite alright, child. Come on inside, I'll make you some tea." Alex grimaced. He hated tea - it was dirty leaf water. His father's boyish honesty warred against his mother's perfect composure, however, so nothing was said.

As Mireille doddered on, prodding Alex about this aspect of his life and that before gradually turning to stories of her own life and the capital, he found himself nodding off in self-defense. Oh, it was bad manners, but he was tired, and he wanted to be as fully awake as possible for watching the stars with Uncle Minoth.

Soon enough, a bracing hand found his shoulder and steered him into one of the inn's beds. He could hear an insistent handful of coins being pressed into Mireille's palm and her fingers being closed over it. Minoth probably had placed a steadying kiss some chaste place or other, and squeezed the old woman's hands or embraced her small form. That was just his way.

"I'll wake you," a brash voice promised to the general area of the bed in as gentle a tone as it could manage.

It was only half past eight, which meant probably a good hour and a half until that glorious night sky would be visible. There was the perfect lookout, just before the Braying Canyon. Minoth strode over himself to get a lay of the ground.

Damn. Amaruq was out with the first full pales of the moon. Eh, what the hell. Addam and Flora's boy was with trustworthy Mireille, safe in a log cabin abode far from the village outskirts. Why not? He'd take the wolf on.

Maybe he'd get another scar, the thought came particularly rueful. But he wasn't making light of the enemy; rather he was making a trifle of his own life and responsibilities. In consequence, and so on...

Minoth circled the wolf with measured steps, recalling his own self-definition of earlier that day.

( "What do you think? Am I a raging bull?" )

He charged, forgoing a careful spray of bullets from strong point in favor of a reckless series of uppercuts to the beast's snout. Minoth danced in a hurricane of gunfire, falling conveniently under an arcing canine leap led by fangs and claws.

Now the bull, now the bullfighter. He played the evasion tactic again, then made a decade of stabs as Amaruq shifted back and forth in its pain, yielding all manner of angles to the damage. Evade the countering swipe again, then jump back and stun with more bullets.

Of course, not everything hit or missed on either respective side, so it was a sort of attrition, but Minoth could feel strength flowing back into him with every hit that did connect. This continued on for some time...and the Volff started to get wise.

Suddenly, too late, Minoth found himself facing the wind-up of the beast's deadliest attack without the proper footing to ply his evasive dance. He was blown down, with a scratch down the fatty part of his right cheek, in to his lips, and he could feel the wolf prowling above him.

It only took a single shot to knock it back so that he could get up and finish the last streaks of the fight, but the damage was done. Amaruq half loped, half limped away, tail not quite dangling in shame.

He used his ether to cauterize the wound (most element types could, in some form or another), cleaned up the disturbed traces of what had recently been a battleground, and walked back into the village proper. All the lights were out by now, and as he looked back up into the sky for the first time since the rabid Volff had been leaning over him, he saw stars winking into view.

Quietly, he entered the inn and rustled Alex awake. "Stars are out," he said simply. By keeping Alex on his left side during the short walk, he could avoid questions about the scar, and then they'd be lying on the grass with no danger of him seeing.

"Got an answer for you now. Or a sketch of one, at least." Bright golden eyes trained on him.

"You know, as a Blade, Mythra's not much older than you. She was awakened just one year before you were born. And as a person, she doesn't have quite the maturity of a full adult. You put that together with your father's insecurity, and she hasn't learned to control the full extent of her power. Not even in these past eight years, since he's been so busy."

"I won't lie to you, Alex. I'm scared." "Of what?" Alex was mature and forthright, but he had to lack something, and it was a cynical gaze at the world around him.

"Well firstly, what if it goes wrong? What if my Core gets blown to bits? That'd be pretty nasty for you all. And that's not down to me distrusting Mythra or Addam. That's just plain common sense. Nobody should go around mucking with Blade's Cores. I know firsthand how that turns out."

Alex scooched closer to Minoth's side. Even with the Dark Blade living in the basement, he'd sometimes heard a nightmare's screams.

"And what if it goes right? What if I get reawakened? I'd lose all my memories. Lose meeting you..." The Flesh Eater reciprocated with an arm around the boy's shoulder.

"But we'd still know you, wouldn't we?" Alex objected hopefully.

"Tch. Yeah, you'd still know me. But it'd be like feeding me Ruska Dumpling Soup every night and expecting it to do a mite of good. I might like it, but I wouldn't have the faintest why. So after all that...what if it works? What if I get a new lease on life as a fresh Blade, but with all my memories? Whose clock would my life be set by? Amalthus's?"

Alex scowled. "Hey, what's that word I taught you?" "Ig-no-min-ee-us," he sounded out proudly.

"That's right. A weak word for it, in fact, but a good one for you. Doesn't matter how long that old codger lives. I couldn't stand it. The semi-immortality I have now is nice, sure, and it gets me a chance to learn lifetimes' worth of knowledge. But I'm my own man now, more or less, and that's enough."

Alex was gratified by the knowledge and the consideration, but he yet puzzled. "The stars are out, but I don't really feel like it."

"Ah, well. Now I'm thinking about your first question."

"About my name?" Minoth chuckled. "You didn't mention it being about your own name. But, I figured as much. So you don't like it?"

"Well...I like it okay, and I know Mum and Dad really like it for me."

Minoth nodded. "I wasn't there when they chose it, but I was there when they decided. Actually, I guess I was the one to seal the decision."

Alex looked struck by an electric combination of confusion and excitement. "You were?"

"Oh, it's nothing so important as all that. I just teased your parents right after they proposed it, and nobody put another word in about it afterward, so it stuck. No hard feelings, I hope?"

His stargazing companion shook his head generously. "No hard feelings."

"It means 'defender of men'. Your name, of course. Your father is 'ground' or 'earth', though he's much more air-headed than that. I don't need to tell you what Flora means, but I think it suits her more than you might expect. Some Floras might just soothe an aching soul. Your mother, wonder that she is, heals it in stride."

Alex cocked his head. "You say a lot of sappy things, Uncle Minoth."

He arched an eyebrow in mock offense. "Sappy, you say? I would have preferred 'romantic', or even 'poetic'."

With the more relaxed bent of the conversation, Alex broke out into a grin. "Nah, you're just sappy."

Mock offense continued into a faker's huff. "That's the prince's job - which makes it your job too!" Need I say it again? Sappy.

"So. Alexander. Are you not cut out to be a 'defender of men' after all?"

"That's funny. Before I was thinking that I'm glad they didn't name me Hugo. Not that I have anything against Uncle Hugo! But he's the defender of men, isn't he."

"You could be too. Nothing stopping you. That's one way you could honor Hugo even without bearing his name. But I think I've grasped what you're getting at. Your name's not quite flashy enough itself, is it?"

Alex reddened, a tinge visible even under the summer night sky. What a silly thing to be complaining about...

"Haha! Nothing to be ashamed of at all. If I had an uncle named after a wild bull who inspired me like the night sky and a blackest storm, I'd be a little frustrated with my middle-of-the-roadness too."

Despite the bravado, Alex saw that Minoth was sympathetically respecting his intelligence and his embarrassment, and was being merely hyperbolic with the descriptor "middle-of-the-road". He let himself breathe a smile.

"It's just such an...eight-year-old name." The top of Minoth's cheekbone glinted in the moonlight as he again arched eyebrow and neck to peer interestedly at Alex.

"Aren't you eight?" "Not forever."

When he next pulled his eyes away from the haze of the night, Alex could see something impossibly fond and sorrowful lingering on his uncle's face. It made him want to snuggle in closer yet again, but he somehow felt apprehensive.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" He got a squeeze to his shoulder. "'S'okay. Gotta pick sometime to grow up, right?"

To grow up...his parents had always made so stumbling sure that he wasn't ever made to do that before he was ready, never more than what was appropriate and gentle, not like what had happened to...oh, most of his family. "But what can I do about it? I don't want to hurt Mum and Dad."

"Alex, your mother and father love you regardless of the name you choose. I'm sure if you came home tonight and said you realized Alex is short for Alexandra, they'd only take issue with their own habits, if they didn't get the wording right every time. Still, if you want to keep the name they gave you, just go by Xander."

"Xander..." he tried out wonderingly. "It sounds like a star in the sky," he said in a hushed voice. "You always were," was his uncle's simple reply.

"I see them now! I mean, I could see them before, but now I can really feel them out there!"

"Exciting, isn't it?" Architect knew it was just a name, the most atomic of changes in the sense that it wasn't really opening up new gates to the world, or even between people.

The name you call someone can connote love, fear, hatred, despair, utility, disgust. It's the calling that does it, though. The identifier is for the identified as much as or even more than it is for the identifying.

So what's in a name, after all? Apparently, it was all the stars in the sky.

Yes, Minoth is functionally Shakespeare, no further questions.

Chapter 25: All in a Mouse's Night - "Think I might go out for a stroll, into the night, and out of this hole."

Don't make your bed. It's not going to stop you from laying in it, and then you have to make your bed twice. In other words, once you've been sent to the garbage, you can't get out.

"What do you think? You want to brave the den of sleeping Origos?" Flora was a tosser and a turner if Addam wasn't there cuddling her like his life depended on it, but she was angry when awoken, while Addam just couldn't be awoken, especially if he had a loved one in his grasp.

Their boots, large and small alike, were regrettably loud on the uneven stone of the garrison-turned-farmyard, and the small dwellings therein and thereon didn't have the thickest walls, but it couldn't be helped. Sneaking in the window wouldn't do, after all, since said window looked in on the very master bedroom Minoth wanted to avoid. Well, he wouldn't mind popping in, but it was probably prudent not to.

Xander cared not, apparently. "I want to. I'm too excited to sleep anyway!" Minoth bowed over-deeply and ushered him in. "After you, my prince."

They needn't have tiptoed, as there was a lamp yet lit in the east wing. A snoring Addam had his arms wrapped around Flora's middle, but she lay ramrod straight blinking insistently at the threshold as if willing her son and his guardian to reappear instantaneously.

Of a sudden, they did. "Where have you been so late? Minoth, I thought you said you'd keep him safe." "Flora-" "It's past one in the morning! Oh- Addam! Addam!!"

She jostled her husband as his embrace restricted her frantic movements, and after a bit of unapologetic jerking, he sputtered to life. "Wha-? Is that you, Minoth? And Alex?"

"Yes, and we're all in one piece," Minoth ground out. "Oh. So you are," Flora said lamely, coming down from her almost-tirade.

"Apologies for the time, I suppose," he continued, "but after all, there's no harm done."

Having shied away from the initial chastisement, Xander broke in. "Mum, Dad, I'm sorry I was out so late. But we went all over the whole moor, and we met Ms. Mireille, and we watched the stars, and everything!" A gloved finger nudged his side. "Oh. And...I want to be called Xander instead of Alex now."

By now, both his parents were sitting up against the pillows, and they exchanged appraising looks. "Sounds good to me," said Addam. "If that's what you want, my love, of course," Flora agreed.

The gloved hand clapped down on Xander's shoulder now. "See? What did I tell you? All's well that ends well." There was a general hum of contentment, but it quickly stilled.

"Hang on, Minoth...what's that mark on your cheek?"

The prince had caught him out. "Oh, that? Just a smudge of dirt, probably." He was lying through his teeth, of course. "I'll clean it off when I get to bed."

Now all the Origos were peering suspiciously at him. "That's not dirt, that's a scar! Minoth, I thought I told you to take better care of yourself."

Minoth deflected away from the emotional implications of that statement. "Amaruq was out. I brought Xander up there to watch the stars from Hyber Point. Ergo, I had to do a little dirty work."

"Ergo, you're a valued member of my family and I don't take kindly to you hauling off and getting hurt like that! Al- er, Xander," Addam's tone gentled, then fumbled, "I don't mean to blame you for your uncle's carelessness, but where were you when this was going on?"

Xander scrunched his nose (a vestige of his mother), concentrating on a recollection of the events of the evening that had preceded their pivotal grass-staged talk. "It must have been after I fell asleep from listening to Ms. Mireille. Uncle Minoth said we should rest until the stars came out."

Flora spoke up then. "I may not be privy to the routines of the hostile fauna from up beyond the moor, but couldn't you have just waited for it to leave?" Minoth was defiant, steely. "Perhaps."

Addam took up the scolding mantle once more. "Xander didn't even know where you were! What if you had died?" Not returned to his Core, but died. The boy looked stricken at the notion.

"He was in capable hands. As was I, I might add." By now, Minoth was all defensive front, arms crossed and his signature slouched knee nowhere to be seen. Addam sighed.

"Look, Minoth, I don't mean to treat you like a child. It's true that ours is safe and happy, thanks to you."

"Nary a scratch, if a little bit of dirt," Flora observed, looking her son over.

"But I worry. Don't give me more undue cause, eh?"

Minoth relented at last, seeing and seizing another advantage to take. "I thought you always said you liked my scar, Prince?" he asked playfully, arm and leg back akimbo.

The prince nodded, obliging. "Why yes, I do like your scar - but Architect forbid you start going around telling everyone I've got a special fondness for them! The Urayans were bad enough already."

"What do you think, Xander?" He was grinning unabashedly now, relieved that the tension had dissipated and no one was more to grudges than they had been that afternoon. "I think you're awfully nice, Uncle Minoth. You and Dad are maybe- no, definitely. You're definitely the sappiest guys I know."

"There's that word again!" Minoth exclaimed in a half-warning tone. Xander stuck out his tongue in response, betraying his maturity and earning Minoth's hand back on his shoulder.

Addam laughed in that way he had that always portended a bit of a harebrained scheme upcoming. "Well if I'm such a sap, then you won't mind terribly if I ask you to sleep here in our bed with us tonight? You don't have to, of course, but...oh, Alex, we love you so!"

The pair standing beside the bed exchanged an exasperated, if loving, glance - and not at the forgotten newfound moniker. "What did I tell you? You even insult the man and he starts tearing up!"

Xander giggled, a sound recalling his father's and only falling short in its lack of depth. "Of course, Dad. I love you too."

Flora nodded her head primly, preening back into her head organizational role. "Okay, now go wash up. You must have grass blades all over you - make sure you clean off the back of your pants as well as your hair."

She didn't spare a word to the likewise grassy adult, but Addam did, commanding, "You too, Minoth."

He masked his confusion with jocularity. "I'm a big boy, Addam. You don't have to tell me how to clean up after myself, I know the drill!"

Unfortunately, all he got in compensation for his performance was a patronizing chuckle. "Not that. Stay here with us." Not me, but us.

"Wha- what, you think I'm gonna have nightmares about the big bad wolf? Not gonna happen, Prince."

"I insist." Minoth only grew more panicked. "Flora, are you hearing this?!" Whether she was or wasn't didn't seem to matter; she yet smiled mischievously.

"Yes, and I'm not mad about it. With you there that's double my chances that he'll be picking someone else to cuddle to death with his sweaty arms." Unsure if he could debate the truth of that statement, Addam blurted a weak "Hey-!" in protest.

"Oh, so you give the young human child a choice in the matter but not the full-grown adult Flesh Eater Blade?"

"Only one of those came back from their long, arduous journey the worse for wear."

"Ah," Minoth muttered under his breath. Then, louder, he said somewhat provocatively, "That makes it seem like you do take a special liking to my scars, eh Prince?"

"You're the worst," came the dour reply. "Sap." "Tree!" Touché.

When Minoth returned from his basement lair (he was partial to his own bathroom), Xander was already tucked cozily between his parents, brightly recounting the name definitions his uncle had taught him.

"The cowboy enters," he deadpanned from the threshold, though the resemblance was much less clear, lacking as he was the boots, chaps, gauntlets, gloves, jacket, and holsters.

"Ah, Minoth! There's room for you on my side," Addam exclaimed, way too damn happy about the whole thing. "I was hoping you'd have changed your mind..." he grumbled, padding across the room in socked feet. At the last second, he changed course and indulged his yet hammy impulses to kiss Flora's hand and the top of Xander's head.

Once on the bed, begrudgingly accepting the last quarter of the blanket, Minoth turned firmly towards the wall and pulled his shoulders in to minimize his spatial footprint.

"Minoth?" He grunted. "Where's my goodnight kiss?" Minoth spat out a final "Stuff a sock in it, clown," but the phrase was lacking its usual warmth.

Apparently having given up, Addam reached around Minoth's head to snuff out the ether lamp. "Well, good night all. Let's make it a great day tomorrow!" Flora murmured a "Good night...", her prolonged wakefulness finally catching up with her, and Xander capped it off with a final "G'night, Mum. G'night, Dad."

Oh, how Minoth missed the quiet of his own room. It was like a full house in here!

"Good night, Uncle Minoth. I love you." Oh. So maybe he didn't do so well with direct, sincere affection either.

"Don't push your luck, kiddo." Too harsh. Maybe try again? "...love you too."

Finally, the emotions in Aletta Manor were at peace, and then Minoth felt a pair of muscular and indeed sweaty arms wrap around his middle.

"Oh, you're just a big softy, aren't you Minoth?" the sassy words came muffled into his shoulder.

"Watch it, Prince. You know what you're doing, and just...don't do it." A hearty chuckle was his only reply. Well, maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all.

The Volff bore down over him, limbs threateningly close to his sides. Occasionally, the gruesome paws tensed inwards, sending shivers over the flesh of his ribs. It growled with a terrifying regularity, as if triumphantly aware that its prey couldn't see it from where he lay on his stomach, and needed reminding of who had the superiority in the tangle.

Breath came hot and stale at his ear, and the beast lapped at his neck. How had it caught him with his neck bare? He'd moved to kick at his captor like a horse would an unknown ranch-hand who had gotten a little bit too close, but soon realized he wasn't wearing his boots, not to mention that his lower body felt strangely constricted. No gloves, no jacket, no gauntlets that could sometimes give a mean bruise with their own glint atop his strong forearms.

Where was he? What unreal foe was this? Abandoning caution, he began to thrash, throwing fists back in the general direction of the beast's snout, which was always too conveniently out of the reach of his shoulder's swivel. He might be mauled for his stupidity, but it beat being squeezed to death by a lean, lumbering wildebeast of a canine.

Suddenly, he jerked awake - had he been lulled to sleep under Amaruq's lunar power? Not now, not like this! He wouldn't fall silently under a Volff that had given him such a badge-of-honor scar, won so dearly. He was made of tougher stuff. He was the wild night, the raging bull, the soaring tempest-!

The Volff was a snoring Addam. Minoth cursed darkly and peeled the prince's arms away from his abdomen. The blankets were heavy, but he wriggled out and dropped his feet noiselessly to the bedroom floor nonetheless. It was true, Addam didn't look quite right with his arms splayed limply to one side, but staying in the family bed, my foot. This house was full of nutjobs!

He moved effortlessly in the silent dusky darkness that came between midnight and early morning, not needing a lamp in his element. Once in the basement, he took great satisfaction in working mightily the hinges of his room's door and slamming it shut after entering.

His mind had been whirring with thought and abandon as he walked, more stormed, through the house. It hadn't gotten any easier, these past eight years. Flora smiled and took his presence easily, but still like a cat she was, possessive and hissing without the barest outward sign because she knew his station was precipitous and he'd knock himself off his own block if needs must.

It was, as ever, the stupidly accurate love triangle. She hadn't changed a wit since that day in Auresco's streets. "May you always find what you're looking for - and stop looking for my husband," implicitly; somehow she'd teased out the hidden motive and meaning so guiltless easily. And yet she had it in her to roll out care without the slightest reproach. What a wonder - what a piece of work.

Xander was an Architect-blessed glue between them all. And he wasn't even a handful, it wasn't as if they had that simple motivic milieu of childhood going for them. Mythra wasn't either, by this point. Gods above, what a stupid, stupid, pitiful little irony. "I'd like to continue having my family around me," and we're nigh completion to falling full apart, in fact.

And the scar. The stupid Volff-born scar. He rubbed absently at it in the dark, and of course it was a lighter thing than the one that decorated his eye so proudly by now, but it was going to stick. For crying out loud, Addam, can't you let anything stick? If he couldn't have perfect impermanance like a Blade, a real Blade and not the fakeout he'd become, then couldn't he have imperfect permanance, like the human he was made to be? And don't you want that, Addam? Or don't you want me to stay?

The pale puce paper of his most recent work in progress glibly reflected the precious little light that bounced about the room, and he was tempted, because it was horribly easy, a borderline addiction pit, to lose himself in fruitless and frivolous creation unbound, places and people that didn't and needn't follow the whims of this ever-so-slightly cruel world, but eventually he just sloughed it off and climbed clumsily into the bed.

Huh. It was cold. Wasn't he a little young to be getting night chills? Oh. Well...he'd throw on a jacket.

Extremely mushy family moving at incredibly loving speeds, and Xander the funky little guy ever. Minoth has depression. The end.

Chapter 26: Fly on a Windshield - "No one seems to care, they carry on as if nothing was there."

Maybe you excite an atom, and it doesn't emit light. But who's to say that it's ready tonight?

Though Minoth had intended for his wild slam of the door to shake the house somewhat, he'd meant for it to be a more or less private outburst. No such luck.

Xander slowly shifted awake and automatically moved his hands to shield from the sun as they rubbed out the sleep shrouding his eyes. But, curiously, no sun was there. A silly little side thought nagged at his mind: saying that just because the sun rose every morning meant that it would rise tomorrow was inductive reasoning, and you couldn't always do it. That's what Mum said, anyway, and she hadn't steered him wrong yet.

The sun, on the other hand... He pulled his legs up to his chin to free them from underneath the covers, then walked on his knees off the end of the bed to make his way to the window. No sun, and no stars. The transcendent night was muggy and clouds had pulled over.

What time was it, anyway? Xander peered at the clock on his father's desk, struggling to discern the minute hand from the hour hand. 8:18, almost 19 (he was never sure when to round)? No, 3:41. So the sun had an excuse for not being out.

When he turned back towards the bed, he noticed a suspicious hole in the overall form that shaped the covers. Uncle Minoth was gone!

Immediately, Xander's mind raced, thinking of the worst. Should he wake Mum and Dad? No time! He'd have to brave the moor alone. He whisked into his room and grabbed boots and cloak. They were miniature, even juvenile, compared to his father's armor, but they were better than nothing.

Racing into the hall, he couldn't resist the temptation to sneak into the kitchen and grab a snack. He needed to keep his strength up if he was going to save Uncle Minoth from the nasty...what was an Am-ar-uk again? It was good preparation to get snacks, he reasoned. Preparation was everything, Auntie Mythra always said.

Speaking of the devil (angel?), there she was, bed-head out in full force, pawing about the counter for leftover Wingberry Cake or Literally Killer Tart (even Milton had to admit she made that dish pretty spectacular).

"What are you doing up?"

Mythra wheeled around, fists at the ready. "Oh. Alex."

"Xander," he corrected automatically.

"Nice," she replied, dropping her hands to her waist where one propped casually and the other hung at her side.

"Some asshole slammed a door." And thanks for the attention to age-appropriate language, Mythra. "Woke me up, so I'm just foraging for a midnight snack. What are you doing up?"

Mythra liked Addam's son better than she had at first blush, but she was yet wary of someone who would grow up to incessantly insist that she was nothing more than a brash, inelegant, uncaring simpleton. If he liked to sneak around in the middle of the night too...well, maybe he could be cool. Not a suck-up, anyway.

"I'm looking for Uncle Minoth. You said somebody slammed a door? That must have been him."

Mythra smirked even as her impression received a correction. Suck-up. Total suck-up. "Yeah. Must be."

She thought the Flesh Eater a boor at worst, and a little skeevy at best. Still, Addam cared about him, for whatever reason, so she'd throw her sword into a fray if there was one to be had.

"We went up to Hyber Village today, to look at the stars. Mum and Dad were really mad because he had a new scar, and they said something about him fighting an Am-ar-oog." That still didn't sound quite right, but maybe Mythra would know what he meant.

"Lunar Amaruq. WereVolff as big as your favorite Armu, and infinity times as mean."

Xander paled, eyes wide. "We have to save him!"

"Eh, I think he can take care of himself. He definitely thinks he can," she dismissed, rolling her eyes. Yeah, she would say the same, but she was an Aegis, not some wrecked heap of human flesh and Blade cells that oozed creep and bullets. No competition.

Too bad the kid was insistent. She let him drag her up the entrance steps and out the door, barely leaving her the concentration time to manifest the full extent of her armor. Something maddeningly human panged in her as she saw that Xander didn't really have a plan beyond "we have to go now".

Damn. It must suck not to be disillusioned, always trusting in being told a clear path to follow and then not knowing where to turn when you tried to strike out on your own. What the hell? She'd help him scour the region, for a lark.

It was a witching hour if she'd ever seen it. Packs of Feris, the Volff's more feline cousin, prowled the moor, looking hungrily at the Tirkin who hid behind their totems in fear. Moramoras had ceased their shadowy cling to the cliffs and were circling lazily - or was it menacingly? Hard to tell. Brogs had ambled out to soak up what little new humidity there was in the air, and a particularly large and colorful Aspar was hiding, rattle alert, underneath one of the Titan's ribs.

For all the agrarianization Addam had wanted to do, he'd left the fauna farther out from the manor relatively unbothered. Bo-ring, Mythra had thought, but she'd heeded him and refrained from making Siren blasts left and right every time she went for a walk.

"You uh...stay close, kid." Xander peered at her questioningly, and she deflected. "I'm not messing up my armor to drag a sorry little boy corpse back to Addam." Said little boy frowned, but said nothing.

He'd never understood why Mythra was so bitter. She only let herself give a genuine smile when Milton came around, and that was only recently. Maybe if he could figure out how to make her be a little nicer, all the little holes in their lives would start to mend.

"So why do you think he's out here anyway? Did he seem particularly keen to off himself?" No recognition. "Y'know, pull the plug."

Still nothing? Oh right, the humans of Alrest's time didn't have those. "Kill himself?" she hazarded, this much bluntness out of even her comfort zone (see, she'd been working on it!).

Xander got that one in spades and immediately looked ready to cry. "It's probably my fault! I was asking him all sorts of big questions and making him think a lot and he had to stop working on his play and pay for me to rest at the inn and he probably hates me and and and--" The enormity of what had been suggested was too much for his eight years.

Mythra gingerly patted his head. "Hey, it's gonna be okay. I shouldn't have said that...I'm sorry. I bet he doesn't hate you." Her comforting was weak and the sniffling continued, gulping and irregular, but a small, clammy hand allowed itself to be taken in a white-gloved one. They trotted at speed towards the looming hill of the Ossum Magnum, Mythra glaring whisper-keen heaven-daggers at all the beasts that hadn't already shied away from the fluorescent tracks in her armor.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... Addam wasn't often in a position to be smacked by one of Flora's flailing limbs, but because of the quirky sleeping arrangement he'd dreamed up, he found himself awoken by the back of her hand over his nose.

After the initial shock wore off, he took the offending appendage in his own, kissed it tenderly, and rolled over to bury his face in her shoulder. The moment was sombering: it wasn't enough just to embrace his natural tendency to hug people in his sleep. He'd have to make a grander gesture one of these days. One of these days...

Wait, why did the sheets smell like grass? Oh right, Alex - Xander, come to think of it. Probably had just woken up and wandered off to his own bed, nothing to worry about. As consciousness swirled around him like the buzzkilling bastard it was, however, Addam noticed a light spilling in from the hall through Xander's room. That was odd - even if he'd gotten up to get a drink, he was always conscientious about the ether lamps.

Ah, nothing for it. He groaned and forced himself up. To his not-so-slight dismay, however, there was no peacefully sleeping son greeting his eyes in the adjacent room. The closet was ajar and several items of outerwear were conspicuously missing. Telltale light was emanating from the kitchen, so Addam checked in there next. The dessert platters were askew - Mythra. What on Alrest were the two of them doing up and about so late?

"Flora! Flora darling, wake up!" She fought her assailant mightily, but eventually Addam was able to get her awake and more or less focused on him.

"Alexander and Mythra are missing. I think they've gone out." Flora made a groggy noise and rolled over. "I'm going to go after them, so...stay right there."

If he was being honest, the main aim in waking his wife up was getting someone to help him buckle his armor, but blast it all, he'd leave a few pieces behind. Time was of the essence!

At that very moment, only somewhat unbeknownst to Addam, Mythra and Xander were running through Hyber Village proper, nearly at their target of the lookout point. Focusing all the light particles she could muster, Mythra could just barely make out the vile beast licking its wounds territorially as it paced about the shady cliff's fence.

"You see it, Xander?"

By this time, he had recovered from the dire, dire attributory consequences of Mythra's so unfeeling statement, and was steeling all his maturity. "I see it."

Mythra grinned. "You wanna see something else?" No way Addam would have anything against blasting a tyrannical unique to hell, right? And there was obviously no one else over there; she'd have sensed their ether signature, Blade or human or otherwise, if there were.

Focusing power into her diadem, she called Siren, locked on, and made a full searing contact with the beast's side. Its various appendages which had heretofore been hanging on by mere strings of sinew flew in all directions, and at the immediate massive blood loss, the Volff gave a final howl up at the moon that was a glaring reflection of the heavenly light just recently present.

Xander was silent. "Pretty cool, right?" she prompted.

Slowly, he shook his head. "Huh. Tough crowd, I guess."

"Auntie Mythra, don't you feel anything weird?"

Again she smirked, this time full out, crossing her arms and preening. "Yeah, I feel something weird. A little kid not being impressed by the Aegis's power!"

Tugging on her hand, he pointed at the Amaruq-less cliff. "The ground is shaking!" Oh. Shit.

Yeah, the ground was definitely shaking. Well...her structural assessment powers weren't quite instinctual yet. As she tried to make better use of them now, Hyber Point was suddenly not there. And, soon enough, neither were they, as the fault line upon which they had apparently been standing sent the whole chunk of landmass tumbling through the recess under Torna's wing and plummetting into the Cloud Sea below.

"Xander!" she called out, trying to see around the clods of earth that threatened to fly right into her face. Something purple slipped out of a compartment in her armor - was it the couple of Rich Platinum Bonbons she'd purloined from the special jar Flora kept for Aegaeon? Eh, no big deal. They weren't as filling as she liked anyway.

But then, as the swirl of mud cleared above her terminal velocity, she spotted Xander reaching out for a small, almost rectangular crystal. It was definitely purple, and it was definitely glowing, and it was definitely about to flash violently into Malos if he touched it. Throat blocked by the rushing air as much as by her panic, Mythra was powerless to stop the awakening of her counterpart Aegis as Xander clutched the crystal to his chest.

Dumbass kid, didn't he know? Well, after all, maybe he didn't. Addam and Flora had always made sure to instill in their son respect for the Blade system - they'd have to, considering half his extended family were Blades, with even a mid-size Titan thrown in for variety - but they were generally quiet on the specifics of the so-called Aegis War, and it wasn't like he went day to day looking at Cores and garnering any reason to suspect that Mythra's was especially different.

She had the filled-out cross shape, but Haze had a rotated square, Jin a kite-like diamond, Brighid a teardrop of flame, and Aegaeon and Minoth had shield shapes. For all he knew, they each would one day retreat into unmounted Cores of the same geometry. And, as evidenced by those last two, not all crystals were completely unique, even if not designed as twins.

Mythra was jerked out of her winding logical reverie by the smack of a dark hexagon-patterned barrier against her cheek. She looked over at Xander, who had also been caught by the sphere of ether but was sustaining no such injury. Below them, Malos was vigorously treading water with his legs (crossing his arms despite himself, the dumbass), his trademark fauxhawk hairdo sufficiently dampened by the moisture of the clouds.

Dumbass Mythra, she chided herself then, didn't you know? Because somehow during the fall she had known, but this, now...what the hell? Him, alive? Not just in her dream? The clouds foamed around his pumping legs, and that could have been just the result of, you know, the other cataclysmic event she'd just effected, but then they hadn't fallen in. She hadn't created this barrier, didn't have the ability to since it was Dark element.

Physically, he was here, working limbs and all. And, yes, there was the wetness of the air interacting with his hair. Eye contact from her to him, even through the barrier, pupils narrowing in recognition. All phenomena that pointed to a real, live and alive being, not one manifested but one made manifest. Whoopee. The boy is back in town. Saddle up, partner, and all that. They were in for a hell of a night.

I like to call this one "pulling bullshit with a Titan's anatomy, aka world geography, because Mythra can sink a little bit of a continent, as a treat," even though Wrackham Moor is very much connected to the rock face underneath the cliff between Hyber Village and the Braying Canyon in-game.

Chapter 27: Los Endos - "There's an angel standing in the sun, free to get back home."

I've crossed you over and over again, but by what you will I'll do what I can. If you let me run then there I will walk. If you let me speak then so I will talk. ...is what I would say if I were even half so repentant as this world expects of me.

"Hey Mythra, you gonna help me out here?" Malos seethed between lunging breaths.

"Sure thing, Malos," Mythra called back. "You know, it's kinda funny how you're down there and we're up here. Shame you didn't have a Gargoyle or seven hidden in the clouds this time."

He barked a laugh up at her. "Quite a wit you've got there, partner. Good to know the sister Father gave me is just as much of a troublemaker as I am. Now get the hell up and gimme a hand!"

Summoning a barrier of her own, Mythra grabbed Xander's hand and slipped down into the shimmering golden bowl, lowering them half the remaining distance to the roiling clouds that foamed angrily with the recent deposit of some sizable fraction of a mountain.

Addam's son was yet silent, taking in the totality of whatever it was that had just happened, so when Mythra prodded a gentle, "Hey, can you swim?" he only seemed to search inside his head for the answer to a completely different question.

By now, Malos had butterfly-stroked over to them. "Eh, he'll probably take like a fish."

Mythra crossed her own arms. "You literally have no idea." Then, processing the last few minutes herself, she threw up her hands. "Man, do I hate how similar our personalities are."

Malos cackled. "What can I say? When Father made me, he decided not to break the mold just yet."

"What- are you saying you think you're older than me? No way!" Mythra huffed, turning her shoulders and almost losing concentration on the barrier.

"Well come on, let's get the kid to shore." They each took one of Xander's hands and gently pulled him into the calming sea, then made a two-armed, four-legged doggy paddle for several impossibly long minutes to a small cove in the stony dragon's underside. Thankfully, it was dry inside, sheltered enough not to have been hit by the waves.

"So what now?" Mythra asked quietly once they had all sat down, eyes trained on her shoes. This was her fault, and it all began to sink in.

Malos gave an arched eyebrow and a wry smile. "Don't ask me. I only just woke up." At this, Xander finally spoke.

"Are you my Blade?" Right. That. Thankfully, Malos didn't seem anything worse than blithely amused.

"I'm the most powerful Blade in all of Alrest, with the one possible exception being Mythra here." She didn't debate it, only noted that Malos hadn't really assented to Xander's use of the possessive word. Not dissented either, but. Still.

She tried to shoot him a glare that said "If you mention the word 'Endbringer' once I will end you - I've done it before," but she couldn't tell if it had worked. Meanwhile, Xander was given pause.

"I don't really need power. I'm only eight."

Malos shrugged him off. "Nah. Everybody needs power. Humans can't get by without it. That is, they kill each other for it, and if it didn't exist...then what would they do?"

Xander had truly been raised with his father and uncle's pacifist ways, it seemed, because his response was small but defiant. "I wish it didn't exist. I'm glad I was born after the war."

His Blade snorted. "After? As far as Mythra's data told me, it's still going on."

Xander looked to her, troubled, and she nodded, shrinking into her own self. "It might not be violent, but it's there. I don't think it'll ever end."

He took this news in stride, lips pursed as they were about all manner of other things already. "Well, but you're not just powerful for fighting, right? You can heal things too, like Auntie Mythra."

He was trying to speak it into existence, but he couldn't have chosen a worse Blade to try to coax that out of. "Not me, kid. I'm only here on this earth to fuel the bonfire of humanity." Something pure pulsed in the back of his Core. "Or at least, that's what I thought my purpose was..."

"About time for you to start wondering who your Driver is, huh? Why do you think he called me 'Auntie Mythra'?"

Malos shrugged, cracked his neck. "Maybe because you're a weird mix of a little crazy and a little boring, I dunno. Humans have all sorts of weird habits."

Mythra smiled wistfully at his half-hearted zinger. "Can't say I like that title much either, but...this is Addam's son. Malos, Xander. Xander, Malos."

The gray eyes focused, pierced, worked on Xander's face. "So. Guess that proves we're really related, huh, my partner?"

"What it proves is that I'm the older one," she replied smugly, taking the bait.

"Whaddya think, Xander?" Malos purred, deciding to at least try to buddy up to his juvenile Driver.

Still quiet among unfamiliar company, the boy answered, "I know that Blades don't really get older, so I don't know about that part of it, but you definitely look older than Auntie Mythra. I guess I don't know enough to say any more."

"Huh." Malos sat back on his haunches. "That's quite a change from my old Driver, isn't it. He thought he knew everything..."

"I mean, he still does."

"Amalthus," Malos spat. This got Xander's attention.

"Amalthus was your Driver? That's the same as Uncle Minoth!" Then, his eyes widened again as he remembered their original goal on that late night, early morning, whichever. "We never--"

In a very Malos-like gesture, Mythra caught the boy's upper arm and sat him back down. "Xander, did you even check the basement before you dragged me out the door?"

His head was bowed in sudden, long-encumbered embarrassment. "No..."

"I'll bet you five dumplings he just went back to his own bed. Kinda sweet of you to worry, I guess, but we got into this whole mess for nothing."

Up went the head to shake vehemently. "If Malos can help Uncle Minoth, then it was worth ten dumplings, at least!"

"Strange currency you got there, Mythra," Malos remarked. She chuckled; he wasn't wrong. "And I'll be sure to let the old cowboy know that's the going rate on his head."

Glancing over at Xander's wide-eyed look, she placated, "Nah, I'm not gonna tell him, and I'm not gonna swindle you out of your dinner either." The small shoulders relaxed, and Mythra patted him awkwardly on the head.

"So, how're we gonna get out of this hole? Place isn't fit to be a Bunnit cave." Malos was standing, hair re-coiffed so that it only barely cleared the ceiling, and examining the walls for any possible hidden passageway that led up through the Titan's lower interior.

"I can't call Siren from down here. There's too much interference what with, y'know, the Titan in the way. Can you do any better with a Colossus or a Gargoyle?"

Malos frowned for a moment, concentrating. "Nothing doing," he concluded eventually.

"Can you use those ether thingies from before?" Xander asked hopefully.

"Nope. That takes too much out of me to do repeatedly, and if it takes a lot out of me, well...a small fry like you wouldn't stand a chance."

Xander screwed up his nose. "What's it got to do with me?"

"You know how a Blade helps their Driver channel ether, right?" Mythra started, and continued after getting a nod. "Well, the Driver has to help the Blade with the same stuff. It's a two-way partnership."

Malos waffled on making a caveat; he wanted to mumble something about not needing a Driver, probably.

"So what can I do to help?" Xander asked, earnest and eager as ever.

Malos sighed. "Just keep quiet, kid. We're probably gonna be here a while."

Diving into the armor pocket where Malos's Core Crystal had in fact not been, Mythra produced the candies, one for each of them. Once resigned to their pitiful measure of sustenance, the two Aegises pinned Addam's son between them and began the long wait until morning.

"You sure came out fast," Mythra remarked dryly to Malos, as the fifth hour of the new day broke in.

He shrugged, conceding her correctness but still arguing her mood. "What, you wanted me to make a big noise about it? You know me, by now. I don't see the point."

Mythra frowned. "I didn't know you before, didn't want to, and I'm not sure I do know you now. I noticed your corrupted parts were healing, but I didn't think it...meant anything."

Glancing over, she watched Malos stretch out his fingers and roll his shoulders in their joints. "Haven't been able to do that in a while, huh?"

"Tch. Yeah, you can say that again. If I didn't know you were only repairing me subconsciously, I would have asked you to do something about it sooner."

"Wait, what? Me?" Mythra jerked up on her heels, head twitching a tad. Malos observed her with a half bored, half vivid stare.

"Yeah, you. Your Core's data and processor was repairing mine the whole time. You didn't just think I did it of my own accord, did you?"

"No..." she started slowly, "I thought it was, y'know, Elysium juice." Finally, Malos threw back his head and laughed.

"Yeah, you and me, sis, we're runnin' on pure, unconcentrated crack from the tree of life, sure. You're a walking pitcher of Elysium juice, and now, once again, I am too." A walking set piece from the land of the gods. Was that all they were?

"Addam's not gonna be happy about this, you know." Malos snorted. "Yeah, I gathered. How come the kid doesn't seem to mind?"

Said kid was curled up a safe distance from the two Aegises, head resting on Mythra's waist-decoration flags that she had reluctantly unclipped. They didn't provide much of a plush buffer against Titan's stone, but it was something, anyway.

"I don't think they ever really told him," Mythra said softly. "We won, and everybody was safe, and after all it's not like I'd want him to be walking around inheriting all their prejudices about me. He's not too bad a kid, really. Goofy - like, way too goofy - just like his dad, but sweet."

"But he's still a human, right?"

Mythra's head snapped up to glare indignantly at Malos. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Contrary to her expectation, the Dark Aegis carried no malice in his expression, only a subtle bewilderment. "Nothing...it's not supposed to mean anything. I'll...I'll figure it out. Later." Her own expression softened as she considered this. Not too bad a thing to have to wrestle with, she supposed.

If Malos was wrestling, his internal struggle remained dead quiet until the relative peace was broken by thudding footsteps from far above. They circled, vascillated, searched, their maker obviously having seen the wreckage of earth strewn into the sea but unable to best parse how to peek in at the cave below. Eventually, they seemed to remember their words: "Xander? Mythra? Are you down there?"

Stowing her amazement at how quickly Addam had found them, Mythra was about to respond when Xander beat her to it. He stirred with almighty speed, then called out, "Dad, is that you?"

"Xander!" Addam finally found his way round to the most advantageous (or rather, least useless) position on the cliff above and peered down at them. He looked completely haphazard and unprepared, but there he was nonetheless.

"It's alright, Xander, I'm coming!" Woah, superhero dad coming through. Mythra rolled her eyes, more an instinctual idiosyncrasy than anything else at the moment. Addam's crusade of mercy was arrested, however, by the scene that shifted itself further into his focus the longer he looked. He looked, he looked, and he looked a little more, lean and squint becoming ever more incredulous with each passing second.

"Mythra, is that...Malos?" At last, she was able to make eye contact with her Driver far off in the half-dark, gold on gold, and nodded tentatively, a little confused as much as she was slightly defiant. Were his eyes not working, or something?

"But- but-- But we killed him!"

Malos snorted, mirthless. "You didn't kill me. If you had killed me, I'd be dead right now."

"People die when they are killed," Xander whispered, clearly enunciated despite still being only half-awake.

"What?" Mythra prodded him quietly and incredulously, retreating into the background for a moment.

"That's what Uncle Minoth says. Or, no...he said he read that in someone else's story one time. It made him half want to tear up the pages and half want to laugh, I think he said." See? What had she said? Goofy, all of them, through and through.

Though perhaps less fully goofy than trope defined, after those eight years past, Addam was yet frantic. "Mythra, can't you call an Artifice, or something? Please, just grab Xander and get the hell out of there!"

"You want me to leave Malos down here?"

Addam near about staggered back in his shock. "You don't? Mythra, what on earth are you saying?"

She crossed her arms, fully defiant now. "You heard it right. I'm saying I don't want to leave him down here. Alone."

The notion was unthinkable, and Malos watched the exchange play out with unexpectedly vested interest, having stayed silent the entire time except for his one irreverent quip.

"You- wha-- You're trusting him?! Mythra, that's my son you've got down there, my own flesh and blood! Even if you're not satisfied with the way our relationship has gone, you can't tell me I'm wrong to want to protect my son from Malos, and expect you to help toward that end!"

Mythra's eyes shone with the stifling of something fierce, something she knew had to be kept in for the good of all no matter how much it felt like the burning truth. "Even if he is going to kill us all, wouldn't you rather I bring him with me so it won't happen behind your back? So you can control him, contain him, just like you feel the need to contain me?"

The twenty-three-, twenty-four-year-old Addam would have started in yelling with her, perhaps, but here he just pressed his lips together, then slowly asked her to "Explain what you mean, please, and calmly."

Mythra pursed her own lips, took a few deep breaths. She knew in the back of her mind that he was right. Okay, use your words. You're grown enough by now.

"Amalthus...didn't do anything to control Malos. But I'm not sure the way you went about it wasn't worse."

Oh no. Oh, no no no. Shock and horror painted Addam's face like lightning strikes in the pre-dawn cloud cover. "Mythra, are you saying that I'm worse than Amalthus? You can't mean it."

"Well...no. There really isn't any way you could look at any of this and say that Addam Origo of Torna did a worse bad than Quaestor Amalthus of Indol. But from the very first seconds that you knew me, you were already trying to force your opinions and expectations on me. Like, I was infinitesimally less extant in the world than Xander is now, and if I wasn't a Blade and an Aegis you wouldn't have dreamed of doing that."

"What on Alrest are you talking about? Just what did I do?"

"You don't remember? Of course you don't. The very first thing you said to me! 'Is that really what you're wearing?' Unbelievable."

If he hadn't remembered, the context refreshed itself like a shot. "Mythra, half your chest and all of your arse was hanging out! Prince or not, I rather think I should be allowed to want to keep respectable."

"You never even had me meet your wife!" Respectable, yeah, right. Which female attachment had been the real tryst, the real unpresentable, unseemly thing? And what a weird fucking thought to have to think.

Addam took objection too, of course, but by a different tack. "What?! We came to Aletta multiple times and I always asked you if you wanted to go in - you were the one who said no, not me!"

"I didn't think you WANTED me to! Can't you see that?" He couldn't see a damn thing, even in the hazy half-light.

"Tide's rising," Malos put in unhelpfully.

"Oh? We, I, didn't completely fuck it up with my Siren strike? Wow." The curse was a bullet; Mythra hadn't untrained her gaze a single degree from where it met her Driver's.

Xander's voice was small, tiny, a squeak. "Dad, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Xander. I...I miss you."

Coincidentally, I did this but as with most of this story wrote this scene long before. Great minds think alike, and all that. :D

Now, about that thing around the middle of the chapter: well, actually, let's not talk about it. I'll only say that after I wrote it I wanted to find out which "four horsemen" meme it was a part of, and #4 in this article is very bad (or good, depending on who you are) Amalthus-on-the-cliff vibes. That is all.

Chapter 28: Mad Man Moon - "If this desert's all there'll ever be, then tell me what becomes of me."

Remember, it's my heart
The heart with which so willingly I part
It's yours to take, to keep or break
But please, before you start
Be careful, it's my heart

-- Irving Berlin, "Be Careful, It's My Heart"

Somehow they managed to wait patiently as the tide rose, Addam's moral and mental fiber nearly worn thread-thin as he had to watch the Aegises take his son hand in hand and bring him back to shore. When Xander reached solid ground again, he rushed without slightest hesitation into his father's arms. The world may have been going awry, but his childish wonder was still intact. It took all of Addam's self-control not to hold him protectively away, but then he was rather preoccupied with clutching him close to his chest, anyway.

"Look, Addam." He looked, and Mythra recalled his admonishment towards calm with her own fiercest self-discipline. Time to get this over with.

"Malos's Core was damaged when Minoth stabbed him, but it wasn't destroyed. I accidentally restored it, little by little. We've had enough time for that, and for other things too. And...I think he deserves the same chances as I do. As I did."

"You think you're so similar to him? And I made you feel that way?"

At that, Mythra had to laugh out loud. "He's my freaking BROTHER, Addam, for crying out loud. 'You're from the same stock,' Minoth said. We fucking are."

So weary was Addam that he didn't even have the presence of mind nor heart to cover Xander's ears. "Fine. I suppose you're right, or if you're not then I'm not one to argue. But you cannot deny that he sank Coeia, and you never did that."

Mythra relented, at last. "Yeah...you're right. And that's probably thanks to you." Then she put up a warning hand. "Don't get sappy, mister. That just proves my point."

Addam was silent for a moment, still rubbing Xander's back and pausing to kiss the top of his head. "Well...what about you, Malos? You've kept awfully quiet."

"And you never would have expected it from me, would you?" the Dark Aegis returned. "First time I met Mythra in our Elysium dream, she said she'd thought that I might have changed, but that she was wrong. She was wrong. And yet, I have changed, by now. Enough to see what all this is about, and what you people fought so hard to stop me from destroying."

Gray eyes met golden ones and made nothing but steady, steadying eye contact. Indeed, "all this" - the entire world. The destruction of the entire world had threatened, been threatened. But it didn't now. You look into the void, and the void also looks back into you. Malos never looked in before, only at. If you do not look in, you cannot see, because what really matters is on the inside. Of course. So simple. This all made perfect sense.

No it didn't. "Can you still use your power? Your black flame, your dark Artifices?" Malos nodded, slowly and evenly. "I can. I summoned up an ether shield to stop your son when he was falling, but the other protocols are still operational too."

"You saved him?" Xander had turned himself out from juvenile comfort and was plying his steepest willpower to not look like a scared child - but he was a scared child, wasn't he?

Malos didn't answer the question, instead continuing with quiet inflected statements of his own. "He's eight years old, isn't he? And you wiped me off the face of these walking earths eight years ago. I would have killed him. His mother, too."

Confidence quashed so quickly, Xander grasped desperately at his father's hand at the thought of not his life but his mother's ending in that way. "You were going to kill Mum? But why? You're not evil."

Buried in there, a nuance that it's not always only evil people who kill others, even others who aren't evil themselves? No. A different thread here.

"No, Xander," Malos answered his Driver, "I don't think I am. But maybe I was, not so long ago."

Xander slipped his other hand into Malos's, restless at the Blade's side, then. "I guess I don't have any reason not to believe you. And like Auntie Mythra said, I have to help you, with your ether and all."

He swung his arms back and forth to drum up some confidence, some momentum. Malos's first instinct was to jerk his hand back, but considering how hard Mythra was busting her ass to get his ass accepted into this...family, he decided he'd leave it. Him and Addam, there in perfect synchronicity and parallel, because Mythra was more like a child than he was, just as Xander had said. Heh. Maybe he was a bastard child of the Architect, even. Funny. Or not.

Anyway, Xander's conclusion: "Uncle Minoth gets so sad and angry when he talks about Amalthus. So I think we should help you like Dad helped him."

Of course, Addam thought as the unlikely bunch began the slow march back in towards the manor, Mythra still standoffish but seemingly warmed at the bright and successful persuasiveness of her pseudo-nephew, so much of this was already out of Xander's hands, and Malos seemingly much less cagey about it. Almost atoning, he was, yet still possessive of his own history. Minoth didn't have anything to atone for. And maybe, in a small, dreadfully twisted way, neither did Malos.

Flora awoke to an anti-sunrise and an empty bed. On any other night (or rather, morning), she would easily have chalked it up to her husband rushing outside to check something in the fields that had suddenly piqued his interest and responsibilities, but she definitely remembered there being two other people in the bed, and Addam was ever-enthusiastic in his rousing persuasion, but...not that much.

Xander in his room? No, and the light was on, closet open. Shirts wrinkled - he must have snuck off with them to get his chores done early instead of giving them their due share of attention and time to dry outside. On the dresser, a book of baby names from the library (Architect knew why they had that, it had probably been donated by Hedwyn), and one of Minoth's slimmest volumes. It all made sense now.

Mythra's room was empty too, and Flora straightened the rumpled sheets as she passed through the first floor in order to descend down to the midnight playwright's humble abode. Once there, she rattled the lock with impunity - it was her house, after all, and in this possible state of manor-wide emergency, who had time for petty niceties?

The bedframe lurched. "Coming, coming," she heard him mutter in a gravelly voice very unlike his usual clear tone. Light sleeper, or drowsy nap that left your mouth full of bad taste? She hadn't ever bothered to observe, but if she had she'd surely know.

When the door swung open at last, he was behind it with limply hanging hair. For some reason she resented, slightly, how comfortable he was. He should have cleared his throat then, but the instinct escaped him.

"Flora! What can I do for you?" he asked, summoned-up and a little garbled. He cleared his throat then. Yes.

"Tie up your hair," she responded irritably.

"...okay? Whatever you say, Lady Origo."

Why hadn't he asked why? Bothersome man. He was very likeable, really, and she knew it farther up than just deep down, but something made her...agh. A clod, she'd always called him. Why was she so hesitant to let go of that predisposition, that prejudice? She supplied the first why - the very first - herself. She could answer his question, anyway, regardless.

"I vaguely remember Addam trying to shake me awake for some reason or other, but I don't know what it was, and he, Xander, and Mythra are all missing." Flora pulled her robe tighter about herself in her worry, somehow ever the mother hen for all how tiny-birdlike she was.

Minoth gave a light scoff, and her head snapped around to look more fully at him. "What's so funny?" she asked sharply. With Addam around, they were perfectly companionable, but let alone...not so much.

"I find myself doing head counts far more often than seems admirable," he said, airy despite himself.

Flora, schooling her icy tone, studied him carefully before offering her reply: "We're both just self-aware like that, it seems."

Oh gods, what seed of barb had she wrapped up in her words this time? Enough games, already. "Flora, do you ever-"

Minoth's sudden moment of courage was bluntly interrupted by tensely slammed doors and stomping feet, ranging all weights and cadences, in the upper levels.

"Flora!" He shot her a look that said "See, look, it's only you he's after, so stop your hissing." Look, look, and look again - it must be obvious, after all this time...?

Shot down himself so soon, however: "Have you seen Minoth?" Even against the backdrop of Addam's inane question and cadence, Flora's responding glare was withering.

They met in the middle, Flora and Minoth making an awkward trudge up the stairs as they were unsure who to usher foward and who to leave behind. Of course, when Minoth met their unexpected guest, he threw a broad arm to his right to bar Flora from danger and take a decided frontal role.

"What's he doing here?" Short and sweet, straight to the point, no flowering nor waxing or sundry accusations at Mythra about fishing for scum to dredge up from the bottom of the Cloud Sea.

"Trying to live his life, for once," Mythra cut back, not quite as bluntly. Flora, behind Minoth's arm, worked through her requisite stages of concern with plainly apparent expressions, even as the rest of them wore façades strangely blank.

"Is this the other Aegis? The one who sank Coeia?" she ventured information that she knew was correct but was unable to trust. "I thought you said he was more or less disintegrated, never to return."

"Isn't that what happens with all Blades?" Addam posed the all-too-poignant question. "From what I've gathered, it seems sensible to treat him that way, for the most part. He-- Well, you can speak for yourself, Malos," he finished, hazarding a pat on the Aegis's armored back.

"Thanks," Malos mumbled, slightly confounded by the courtesy. He hadn't ever needed it, before, and even in the few confrontations he'd had with people who actually cared to give pushback - these people, of course, or three of them anyway - they'd only been eager for the moment when he'd shut his trap and get to getting gone.

"You're Xander's mother, right?" Flora nodded, pushing Minoth's still-protective arm down with an absent hand. "That's me. You're more polite than I expected."

Malos gave a dry chuckle. "Well. Based on the way Addam acts, and what I've seen of you just now, you've taught your son the same manners, and his influence is in me pretty strongly right about now."

"His...influence?" One didn't influence an Aegis, or so she'd thought, given the way Mythra behaved, and certainly not an Aegis that's already been awakened... "Xander, love-" And she reached her swiftest arms out for him, but he didn't go.

"It's okay, Mum. Malos is my Blade, and I'm gonna make sure he has a good Driver now." Simple as that, and needed no argument.

"Pretty noble of you, Xander," Minoth offered. Something in Mythra shuddered at that. Noble? To deign to awaken a Blade? To submit yourself to the lug-nut responsibility of becoming the Driver of an Aegis? It wasn't half that trumped-up. Asshole.

Here they were, back in the house - the home - now, and Mythra had bled out her petulance, somewhat. Not even somewhat, all of it. Of fucking course they didn't want Malos and of fucking course they did want her. And Addam cared about her, loved her even, like his daughter just as Flora had said. Even if it shouldn't quite be that way.

Here was the shining example, even: he was going along with her insistence that Malos be yielded the same ground as she had been. No gamutted measure of "containing the power of the Aegis" would include permitting an action like that. Father above. She had never been much of a crier, more a screamer, and yet the feeling of tears tugged at her eyes. She wanted to give Addam a hug, but stubbornness won out. She'd do it later.

And still... "Ugh, this guy," she huffed out. "Just what I need." It was an inane, non sequiturious quip, but she just had to get it out, because...ugh, this guy.

"What'd I ever do to you?" Minoth asked warily, feeling all the more stupid for not having actually put the jacket on, only tossing it carelessly over his shoulders. They were too big for it without being firmly cased in the sleeves, and so he looked just as pearl-clutching as Flora had when she'd first come down to find him.

Addam looked to be in agreement with the latter sentiment, but more or less, Mythra ignored the guy in question, cutting right to the chase of how it affected her. "I saw you with him, all the time. Lora said 'I'm sure he hasn't forgetten about you, Mythra,' and she was right. But I think you wanted to. I think you were trying."

Women. Azurda was right to struggle. Minoth so fervently wished he was back in his room - even if they were in there with him, at least he could crawl under the desk, or something.

Addam, meanwhile, bristled outright. "Mythra, I may have had a hard time coming to grips with your power, and our bond, but I never tried to forget about you. Even, you were foremost in my mind, all the time. Practically every waking moment!"

"Sure, sure. Maybe I was first, but he was definitely second. It's not like he even likes you that much anyway. Or so I've gathered. When Xander dragged me outside to go save him because he was out killing himself on Amaruq's teeth, or whatever...let's just say I wasn't surprised."

Whaled jab. They didn't deserve it. But she did it anyway. She had to know. Had to poke the fucking cowboy bear. It worked, of course. Mythra was nothing if not precision-strike efficient. What's that now? Of course. Long-arced introspection will do that to you.

"Minoth, is that...?" Addam's hand worked in its sleeveless hang, and Flora grasped at the mindless fingers despite anything that may have just occurred between she and the referred. And was it?

Minoth heaved a sigh, finally caught out after all these years. "I've never gotten any closer than ideation," came the first woefully easy thread of concession.

"I couldn't. What if it didn't work? We can't know what happens to us in death, mutts like me all the less so. I'm too afraid to live, too afraid to die. Might it have been better not to have known anything else? This is my own accursed salvation, I suppose."

The words were muttered more and more as he spoke. Saying it out loud made it a hell of a lot more real, unfortunately.

"So you crave oblivion, is that it?" Malos was all over this as his first point of interjection. "See, Mythra? I told you. They wish they were dead! But," and here he frowned, "somehow it doesn't feel right to laugh at your pain. I may not like you, but I can tell that you're important. I always knew Amalthus was a bit of a worm. So this is how pathetic his real Blade turned out to be."

He was circling, giving Minoth a once-over. "Your Core Crystal's degrading. I can fix that."

Minoth was skeptical. "You can help me, but Light-Show over there can't?" That fact was separate to whether or not she would even agree to do so.

Malos shrugged. "Only a suggestion."

He began to tick on his fingers. "I'm your same element, and I know or at least have data in me that can easily pinpoint the influences of Amalthus. I was awakened out of need and not duty, which means the trust and control is stronger off the bat." Something he'd deduced from Mythra in their dreamscape chats.

"And to top it off, the kid wants it really bad." As he said this last, Malos quirked an eyebrow at Xander to confirm, and smirked at the almost comically grave nod he got in return. "I'm your best shot, cowboy."

Minoth considered this, thought back to his fight with Amaruq, took in the aggravating presence of fucking Malos in front of him. He could feel Addam's eyes boring into the back of his head and was, quite honestly, a little irked. With the Aegises here, working their magic under explicit permission, he rather figured he'd be dealt a pretty absolute hand, one way or the other.

He closed his eyes and bent, unbent, rebent his right knee a few times. Ouch. "What the hell? Do your worst."

Malos laid a confident hand on Minoth's chest, only applying more pressure at the flinching response. "Easy now. This ain't gonna be pretty." His subject could feel a steady, forceful pain through his Core, like a broad hand thrusting through thick, murky ether.

Seeing the myriad fraught expressions flashing across Minoth's face, Addam made to interject. "Malos, what are you-" Malos was unbothered, even conversational, as he intercepted the query.

"Erasing all mention of Amalthus. In order to bond a Blade with a new Driver, we have to force-overwrite any remaining data for the old one. Well, it's not something we're usually supposed to do ourselves, but I have the protocol for it. If I don't do this right, some nicher parts might reactivate at the wrong time."

Mythra's eyes widened. "Malos!"

She dove across the room and attempted to wrest Minoth, who by now was unconscious, from between Malos's hands on his chest and upper back.

"Mythra-!" Distracted, the Dark Aegis lost his grip, and the body fell to the floor with a dull thud.

Malos turned dangerously on his sister. "What the fuck was that for?" he spat.

"'A Driver and Blade are one in body and soul,'" she recited, almost mechanically.

Malos sneered. "What, you don't actually believe that crap, do you, partner?"

Mythra was unshaken. "A Driver's very being is encoded into every aspect of a Blade's data, independent of the memory space taken by interactions where they were present."

"In normal Blades, replacement is routine: we, or rather, the Architect's automated cleanup process, look for the Driver portions of the encodings and swap out data for the DNA of the new Driver. Even if you were being a simpleton by removing every single mention of Amalthus period." Here she glared at Malos, unable to even take pleasure in her use of the insult so often waged against her.

"But Flesh Eaters have their memory hierarchy corroded when the human cells are integrated the way Amalthus was doing. There's no one place for storing the Driver-Blade relationship - it's everywhere, because it's less central. So when you do what Malos just did..."

"...you erode their very soul," Flora finished.

Addam was on the floor in an instant, joining Xander as they stared blankly at Minoth's unconscious body. "He's breathing, at least."

Mythra nodded. "He would be. His organic systems aren't damaged, just his brain."

Ignorant of Mythra's confirmation, Xander yelped. "Ow!" He jerked his hand back from the Core Crystal that had begun glowing red-hot underneath his hand. Yet slightly unfeeling, Malos spoke up.

"So what's happening now? His Core Crystal is rejecting his body?"

Mythra was on him in a rage now, again. "Yes, and you'd know that if you'd actually bothered to retain any of that information that Father left us!"

Fucking fighting words. He stormed into her and shoved his hands against her shoulders, nearly pushing her to the ground before repeatedly stabbing a meaty finger into her face. "I was a little busy trying to figure out about these goddamn humans he sent us down here to live with!"

Mythra crossed her arms. "Yeah, and that worked out real well for all of us."

"What, because you actually like being down here with these pissy little runts? Look at them! The reject Tornan prince, his commoner wife-"

"Malos, you better take that back."

"Nah. It's the truth and you know it."

Mythra clenched her fists. "I don't know anything." Indeed, Malos was in his element. "Heh, you got that right."

"Malos!" she warned. "Mythra!" he mocked back. "Why, you little-"

"Will you guys stop fighting?!"

Both Aegises stopped, taken aback. "I get that you're mad about being on Alrest...I think. But we're nice people, I promise! Everything would be better if you were just a little bit nicer to us and to each other - and to yourselves!"

The Aegis siblings huffed and turned backs toward each other. Once they had done so, Xander's confidence faded. "...what's gonna happen to Uncle Minoth?"

As he said this, the Core Crystal finally forced itself free of its flesh prison, morphing back into a blackened, dormant state and leaving only a few curled strips of dried, bloodied skin behind. A notebook with quill in spine clattered out of some recently-dematerialized pocket or other. No one spoke.

Just imagine I have a big sticker slapped on my foreheard that says "Ask Me About Blade RAID" - except don't, actually, because I don't want to make a fool of myself and I know I will over comment text. To summarize: normal Driver-Blade relationships utilize a flavor of striping, which spreads data out over multiple storage units to speed up disk access and allow for parallel execution, and once the Driver link is taken away the Blade shuts down, backs up, and reformats itself with a fresh OS. Flesh Eaters, then, end up having parity bit storage to keep themselves in check without a Driver, having their erstwhile Driver's leftover data stuffed in pretty random places everywhere, and Malos just went in and shot the integrity of Minoth's entire system to hell. One can only hope that there's still a recovery partition left unharmed.

Chapter 29: No Reply At All - "I get the feeling you're trying to tell me - is there something that I should know?"

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

-- Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát LI

"Malos," Jin spat without a trace of reserve. Haze stood behind him with clenched fist held firmly over Core Crystal.

They had sent for him as their resident expert on deep Driver-Blade bonds, and where Jin went, Lora followed, as did Haze and Mikhail, even in his adolescence. Somebody had to stay with the younger residents of Rynea House, though, and Mikhail saw no love lost on finding out what was to become of Minoth. Maybe he had been a pretty cool guy, after all. He seemed to know an awful lot about people for having been an outcast all his life. But if he didn't have his memories anymore...way lame. And it wasn't like Malos had killed his only friend in the world or anything, but still, no reason not to be wary.

"Oh, dry up, icicle boy, I'm not gonna hurt you. I've been recuperating from that nasty stab this asshole gave me for eight years now. I might not think too differently than I did then, but it almost seems like that's never been up to me. I don't know. Point is, keep your sword on your back and your dick in your pants."

No one quite knew what to say to that. It was really very similar to being confronted with one of Mythra's half-crass half-philosophical outbursts, and thus Lora knew how and when to clear the floor. She was just about to when Jin spoke again.

"How do I know any of that's true?"

Malos snorted, shook his head. "First of all, do I really seem like a liar to you? I laid out every one of my plans and motivations on a silver platter for your whole group. Everybody knew what I was about - the whole goddamn world did."

"That's first of all," Jin conceded, "but what else do you have in mind to back yourself up?"

Crossing his arms tighter, Malos gave his best attempt at a reassuring and reassured smile towards Mythra. "I wouldn't be here if Mythra hadn't thought that I deserved another chance. I know you people don't trust her, but I think I do - and I think she's worth trusting."

"You're wrong," Jin said with what almost looked like a smirk.

"Oh? Enlighten me."

"I do trust her. She has good judgement."

"Jin, you..." Mythra started, "...you sure picked a hell of a time to come out with that."

"This may in fact be the only time I ever will." Despite the biting remark, his tone was more frosty than icy, edged with a sheen of warmth.

Lore spoke then, giving more buoying words. "I agree with Jin, about Mythra. You really have grown a lot. And Malos, I'd like to be able to trust you too, if that's what you want. I'm a firm believer in second chances."

"Sometimes a little too firm, my lady," Haze murmured under her breath. They still lived in a modicum of fear that Gort would come back to haunt them, but it hadn't happened yet, so take this in substitute, one can only suppose.

"Malos?" "Yeah, kid?" Xander had piped up.

"I'm not mad at you either, for what happened yesterday."

Malos fought the urge to crouch down with hands on knees. What a weird thing to feel the need to do. "You're not?"

"No." The petite head of perpetually untamed locks shook itself vociferously. "Because that's what Uncle Minoth said he was afraid of anyway. So it was my fault that it happened."

It wasn't, it definitely wasn't, and Mythra put her own hand out to express...what? "That's not true, Xander. And even if it was, we'll fix him, it'll be okay." Even if it was, not is, because it definitely wasn't. Father above, he was so much like his dad.

Okay, here we go, Lora thought, and finally circled back to her planned encouraging statement. "Well, nothing for it, right?"

Addam, silent the whole time until this point, heaved the sigh of a broken man. "I don't know, Lora. Maybe he'd be happier the way he is."

"Hey, don't talk like that. He deserves someone kind like you. You can't just keep him up on a shelf forever, that's horrid."

They kept talking about the pitiful little crystal like it was a person, someone they knew and someone who could know them. It was a woefully transparent way of suspending their fantasy for as many more moments as possible. The maudlin thought had crossed Addam's mind, that in their time spent waiting out the dormancy period he should cradle it close to his chest and will away the alienation, but ah, 'twas not to be. None of them had ever experienced the awakening of a Blade who they had once known, let alone one who had once known them.

The air was chilled, stagnant, and it wasn't Jin's ether. Gingerly, Addam hefted the crystal and waited for it to glow with any indication of life. None came. His reluctance must have made it so. How very like Minoth, even in Core state, to be able to smell the fear on an opponent. Wasn't this a battle, anyway? It was a cruel game.

He stroked the etching winding over, around, between the many faces and layers of the crystal. Did one of these patches of script show his name? Did they record the shape of his scar, the cadence of his voice, the length of that one lock of hair that was just too short to fit in his ponytail? Had even those things yet survived?

Addam had already eased down into a chair at his desk, and now lowered his forehead onto the flat top of the stone. He let go of his own wants. This person just needed to be whole again, it didn't matter by whose definition. As long as he could yet live...that was all that mattered.

The crystal glowed. No bounce, no flash, no elemental gimmick, just slow on then slow off like a faintly pulsing Upa light. Then it faded further into dull purple particles. All was silence, but there was another presence in the room. Addam turned, slowly and by degrees, until he had confirmed it.

Same height, same hair, same searching, suspicious eyes. "Minoth?" Addam voiced tentatively. "You ask, Minoth delivers," the named Blade answered, simple as anything.

Gone was the affection, the timbre, the bravado. The chest-mounted crystal was sterling and ocean pure, but still at its base a common blue.

"I, uh- hello." "Your name?" "Addam." No Origo, no "Prince" (he couldn't stomach the thought)...no flourish. In return, a bare nod.

"Addam. The first man, in some old legends. Might you be my first Driver, then?" He knew that bit of trivia but not their names? (Never mind that he hadn't questioned how they had known his name, if that was true.) Oh, if the Architect had only willed it to be so.

Addam shook his head. "The second, at least." "Ah." Minoth put up a hand. "Don't tell me. I have no desire to know."

"Minoth, I--" Addam couldn't keep himself from reaching out to touch...what, he didn't know. Where the scar should be, apparently. His hand was shoved away.

"Don't go getting handsy just because you're my Driver. I don't know you." The words were hissed as much as they were drawled.

"No, you don't," Addam said ruefully. This wasn't like Minoth, to be so staunchly prickly when he had no history with someone. Usually his judgement came after measured reason. Addam drew back and into himself.

"I must apologize. I had thought that perhaps you would have been happier not being awakened at all, and I see now that that intuition was right. If you want, we can-"

"Did I say that?" Minoth's arms were crossed. "Seems to me you're just a coward. You all look mighty dejected. Expecting someone else?"

His tone was blatantly accusatory, not disappointed in himself that he didn't seem welcome, but dissatisfied with the group of people gazing mournfully at him who looked like they just weren't ready in general.

Addam turned a pleading face towards Jin, grasping for any port.

"We all knew you in a past awakening. We had grown to trust you, and you us. The difference is disorienting, to say the least," the Ice Blade provided simply.

"Ah. Well, you'll just have to start over again, won't you?" Both the Lora and Origo squads looked to the Aegises, hoping for a negative on that one.

"Minoth, you mind stepping out?" Dull amusement danced across his features. "Getting off on a great foot for trust, there, aren't we?" But, he obliged, and Mythra steeled herself for the exposition she was about to give.

"When Blades dream, that's their data being backed up to the central repository, in the World Tree. Because of that, they don't have crazy dreams like humans do, because there's no new information being created. It's just a retread of the last however many hours, days, weeks."

"But the Flesh Eater thing is a wildcard again, isn't it," Malos said, crossing his arms.

"Yes. With those human cells, he's more susceptible to factors like light, temperature, sound, and other people around that will cause 'normal' dreams. Anything with some kind of element of interference won't actually record information, and could even damage the last backup that was made."

Flora looked down. "But with his circulation getting poorer at an erratic rate, we can't know anything for sure. He sleeps in the basement, too."

Shifting hand to hip, Malos barked a laugh. "Oh, you keep the skulker in the basement? Suits."

Xander tugged at his Blade's arm, almost as eager to be in the position to chide someone else as he was disappointed in Malos's sarcastic nihilism.

"Fine, fine, you're right. I'd probably like it better down there too. So what's good? Is it World Tree climbing time?"

Unsteadily, Addam shook his head. "I don't know if we should interfere."

"What?" Mythra snapped. "After all these years of you wanting me to do something about his condition, and us finally getting somewhere, you just wanna give up?"

He heaved a sigh, sinking further into his pathetic histrionics. "It just seems like we should leave well enough alone. Maybe we always should have."

"Master Addam, don't you see?" Haze was far from their least insistent. "Master Minoth became the man he was because of you. You gave him a reason to keep his spirits up. You gave him a friend he'd never had. You can't give up on him now!"

It was enough to put the prince over the edge. "Haze, I'm sorry, I really am, but I don't think that's my choice. I'm a prince of Torna, and we respect Blades almost above all else, you know that. Well, Minoth is once again a Blade in his own right. He's got pride, he's got intelligence, he's got character - who am I to change that? To overwrite that?"

Astonishingly, Malos was the one to counter these arguments. "You're his Driver, that's who." Somehow they all knew it wasn't just the qualifications of these past ten minutes that Malos was referring to.

"Yeah, I abandoned my Driver, but that's because he sucked ass. The few times he mentioned your friend, Amalthus looked like somebody had slipped a Munchygrub into his dinner, and his face looks like a fucking lizard at all hours of the day. That alone is proof that you had a better influence on him than anybody could have hoped. If Blades are really people instead of tools, then don't you owe it to them to show them what a good person values?"

"I never would have expected it, but I agree with what Malos is saying," Lora put in. "If Minoth wasn't a Blade, it'd be like we gave him the best salve in all of Alrest, but in exchange he'd have to have amnesia. What good is the gift of life without your memories?"

Standing behind her, Jin grimaced. They seemed to be rather pointedly dancing around the heart of the entire plight of all Bladekind. Well, but he supposed he agreed - if they had the chance, they should at least try to do right by at least one Blade.

Flora nudged at Addam's side. "After all, Addam, think of how hard you had to fight him on getting him to leave Indol. There's no doubt that he appreciates all you tried to do, so the least you can do now is ask. Like Lora would say, even if not, there's still no harm done. Will you try, love?"

She had to be in a particularly emotional mood to use such a term of endearment. Addam relented, with the concession, "Alright, I'll do it, if you're all so determined to be my better stars..." Indeed, they were.

He was unsure if it was better to call Minoth in like an underling or go out to retrieve him with the unfortunate side effect of getting the two of them alone. After a moment of vascillation, he settled on a compromise of stepping towards the doorway as he called the Blade's name. Minoth loped back in without comment and crossed his arms.

"I know you've no particular interest in finding out about your past Drivers, but I think it's rather important. Do you mind if I speak to a litle of your history?"

The answer was a shrug: "Up to you. You're the Driver." Titan's foot, this was going to be difficult.

"I, er...we didn't just know you as Drivers and Blades know each other. I first met you as a young adult, when you were the complacent servant of an Indoline Magister. I've known you for- gah, half my life."

Minoth's expression softened, but only slightly, almost imperceptibly. It was enough for Addam to catch - he'd been watching that face with all the care in the world for years, after all.

"I cannot overstate how much I cherish the experiences we shared in that time. At the suggestions of my companions here - my family, and they had come to be yours, too - we want to try to retrieve your memories."

There was an expectant pause, and then Minoth's eyes narrowed.

"You can't be much older than thirty. Unless that Magister's been living with you all that time, and kicked the bucket sometime recently, your story doesn't add up. I'm inclined to think it's the latter."

A pained look came over Addam's face as he explained, "That Magister became a Quaestor, and took up grisly experiments involving the fusion of human and Blade cells. You volunteered for one, and he didn't stop you. What he did was an atrocity, but it gave you independence."

"And how do I know you won't do the same?" The calculated response took them all aback.

Screwing up all his determination, Xander pushed his way past Malos and Mythra. "We'd never do something ignominious like that! Uncle Minoth, you have to remember!"

Minoth snorted, but there was no humor. "And you got the kid in on it too. The 'Uncle' routine is a little too on the nose, if you ask me." Xander shook his head, worried it fair into a fit, and ran out of the room.

"Xander-!" Addam called helplessly after him, as Flora followed their son. "Gah...Minoth, I implore you to trust us."

"I trust you only as far as I can shoot you from, even if I can shoot pretty far. You've not earned a longer rope than that," came the curt yet flowered reply.

Trying to defuse the situation, Mythra commented, "Even I wasn't that cagey at first."

The thought chilled Addam to his bones. Was he doomed to be just as bad a Driver for Minoth as he had once been for Mythra - still was, really? Oh, Architect say it wasn't so...

The current tensions were interrupted by a noisy Xander bolting back into the room, clutching what looked like a scrap of paper in one hand and a journal in the other. He shoved the all-important object at Minoth, forcing the Blade to remove a hand from his hip and take it.

"There's proof," he got out between huffing breaths. "And if you think words are better, I've got the stuff you wrote about it too."

The piece of paper was a photograph, fairly well preserved against accidental wear, save for the creases that came of being carried in Xander's small but mighty fist. Quite a few of the people in it weren't present, Minoth saw, and he himself was standing apart from those that were, almost cut off on the right-hand side, but indeed, there was Addam's arm about his shoulder, and the red-haired woman and her Blades positioned next to the blonde woman who must be Addam's other Blade, each displaying a varying amount of enthusiasm.

"What's your name, kid?"

Relief started to slide over Xander's face. "I'm Xander. It's short for Alexander, but you helped me decide to be called Xander."

"You're a pretty big fan of your uncle, eh Xander?" The boy nodded as gravely as he could, trying not to get his hopes up by smiling.

"What's his favorite Art?" An easy one! "Huracán!" Xander exclaimed proudly, miming the circular bullet dance.

For the first time that dim, depressed afternoon, Minoth laughed, genuinely laughed. "Your footwork needs some attention! That form won't help you evade anything."

Then, he turned back to his Driver, face setting back into seriousness.

"So, Addam. What exactly does this little adventure of yours entail?"

Again, the Drivers are talking over the Blades, somewhat. That's always a point of personal contention for me, but I feel, or perhaps only hope, that these sentiments flow naturally from and between the characters as shown, so there it is.

Chapter 30: Snowbound - "See it rolling away, with wild eyes to the sky. They'll never, never know."

in confusion we return to the basest truth
"i love you," we think, and cast that out into the ether
in it there is desperation and resignation and sorrow and shame
yet it is all we can cling to as the last coherent thought
for it could never be untrue

Azurda took them, of course he did. Alerted by the sudden change of geography on his mother Titan, he had already come for a visit, and when Addam looked on him with pleading eyes, he recalled their conversation in the sand gardens with latent understanding and a heavy heart.

They flew over and up to Mor Ardain first, needing to inform Hugo of the passing events before they unfolded in dire and disorganized ways. Unfortunately, that Titan's soldiers were both stupid and stupidly loyal, and unaccustomed to non-domesticated travel-size Titans as they were, Azurda was forced to land with rather a crashing thud away from the shouts and gunfire, injuring his wing with a fold over on itself. The cause for incapacitation wasn't serious, but it was something at all, and Addam leaned about his broad, yet-unbowed neck and was supported as much as he tried to give support.

Malos, hooded and hidden and made to hold Xander's hand like a bodyguard, didn't make venture into the palace, of course he didn't. Hugo accepted the news of his reappearance, his return, with risen, appraising eyebrows, if Brighid and Aegaeon flickered and fluctuated, respectively, in their ever-ready ire. But they, like Lora's group, nodded in conferral with each other and said if we gave Mythra a chance, well, doesn't Malos deserve the same? For a first resonance, he didn't have it great. Let him have a go, and perhaps to gie it laldy, Hugo even said rather strappingly.

With Azurda out of commission, they didn't trust anyone else to transport them, so Brighid recruited Haze to help pore through her back catalog of journals and locate anything that gave even a hint of a clue about remedies for ailing Titans, particularly of the smaller variety. It was maddeningly ironic that, with such a quandary facing them, Azurda himself couldn't fly them back to Torna for use of the extensive royal library and the titanic quantities of Titan knowledge stored there. But, they had to make do.

Once the search efforts had begun, Lora wanted any excuse to get out of the palace, and Jin didn't object, so they, along with Addam's family plus Blades, passed back through Alba Cavanich and out into the plain that was just showing the first signs of becoming an arid desert at some future time.

Unfortunately, any possible nature stroll was thwarted by a massive herd of Ponios, most grazing peacefully but a few training menacing eyes on the intruders. Malos put a hand out to summon his Monado, but Mythra stopped him just as quickly.

"Save your destruction, this isn't our turf."

Addam nodded, clarifying that, "Beyond my own predilection not to harm peaceful fauna, it's not our place to cull even hostile wildlife on the Empire's lands."

Minoth cast the side of one eye at Malos, unimpressed. "Not like you even need to use force, anyway."

Before anyone could stop him, he strode easily into the center of the harras, having picked out the lead stallion and somehow communicating his benign intentions. Within moments, he was atop the steed, leaning along its neck and whispering in its ear, and the rest of the pack began to ease their tense postures as well.

Addam shook his head wonderingly. "Remind me to stop letting him beg out of farm work when we get back - memories or not."

Xander timidly walked out to pet a comically small Ponio, and when it looked about to buck Minoth was on the ground in an instant giving reassurances, more to the animal than to the boy. Addam's avuncular pensiveness, however, was then interrupted by the sight of Xander tugging at his erstwhile uncle's sleeve and being borderline snapped at in return. One, two, three seconds of wobbling tears forming, and then he tackled the Blade's waist with all his most earnestly summonable eight-year-old might.

Minoth stood silent, jaw working, and his eyes swiveled to shoot a glare at Addam and Flora before lowering back to the brown-haired head beneath his chest. He cracked his neck, and that was normal enough, more an idiosyncrasy than a vestige, but mid-roll gave a jerk, and his arms moved swiftly, protectively, to wrap around Xander's back. Another one, two, three seconds, and then the arms were lifted rather robotically away. Minoth's stare re-hardened, and Addam had to wonder if there had been something more to that small moment than a sense of unwilling obligation. Oh, by the Architect, he hoped so.

Soon enough, they were up and flapping again, and made the trawl in to Megaflote Base, just above the roots of the World Tree. After the more complex revelations about how Blades' memories and composition worked, it wasn't that big of a leap to understand that this great arborite was not in fact organic but a mechanical firmament leading up to the heavens just as realized.

Leading up, that is, through a series of cylindrical elevators blocked at their inception by an authentication terminal. Mythra and Malos had shared a glance, and then she'd stepped forward to access the door control.

There was an all-too-short all-too-long span of itchy time then, in which Lora and Haze fiddled with the loops and laces on their clothes, Jin pulled at his gauntlets, Xander tapped his boots on the floor and listened to the anti-musical clang, Flora whispered petty reassurances to Azurda, and Minoth...just stood there. Unamused, undistracted.

Eventually, Mythra looked up, and it was with an air of not finality but curbed hesitation.

"I can't get us in."

"What?" She could tell that Addam was trying not to act distraught, trying not to show his absolute despair, but it wasn't working. And that made what she was about to say all the worse.

"No. It's not that I can't. It's that...I figured out where this protocol, this informaton, was stored years ago." Years ago for Mythra of course meant any time when she was living in Aletta with them. There was practically no other time for her. "But I'm not sure, if I access it, I can come back."

"Back? From where?" Not that Addam was prepared to go with her, or seemingly ever would be.

"From her ascended state," Malos put in. "Once she goes into administrator mode, there's no telling how long the session will last."

"Because you've never done it before," Addam started uncertainly, "or because your link with your Driver isn't something you trust to handle it?"

"I mean, it doesn't really have all that much to do with you. If I log in as her, as...Pneuma, then she operates pretty much independently of a Driver. Like she was always supposed to."

"And what about Malos?" Malos bad, Mythra good. Light and dark, dark and light. "His administrative username is Logos. I am the life, and he is the truth." Aha. A staggering amount of history made sense at that quiet revelation.

"So you're well equipped to take us up to where we need to go. The both of you are." Because of course, the thought from the awakening was and had been a lie. Addam's wants still pervaded his mind, and he wanted to get up that tree very badly.

Minoth stood to the side, again silent. He'd kept that way the overwhelming majority of the time throughout their journey. Maybe he didn't even want to go in, but one of Addam's wayward Blades at a time, eh? Or maybe not.

"Do you trust him?" As the words left her mouth, Mythra heard them take on that peculiar not-a-question-question cadence that...that many adults, humans, had, but particularly Addam. Not a singular upticked inflection, round from bottom to top, base to crest, but the "you" accidentally emphasized and the rest of the words just collected as a natural confluence around it.

Minoth shrugged, cocked his head to one side with the tendonational movement of his entire neck. "He seems like an honest enough person, if a little bit of a simpleton."

"A simpleton...?" And that was her own cadence, her own shock and disbelief that anybody, not least Minoth who would go on and on about the clown prince and his fool ideas and ideals but would never, never disrespect him in a way so honestly told from the heart and not shot from the hip, would call Addam Origo, her Driver and his, a simpleton.

She had never blamed him for that, never. Because he wasn't stupid, he wasn't simple, he wasn't the dumbass she'd always called him in this same vein of genuine ire. The same way she'd thought all those years ago that they couldn't hurt her if she put up the walls first...he hadn't done that. The fact that he cared, cared so much and too much, made it almost definitionally impossible for him to be something so small and insignificant as a simpleton, never mind a whole host of other evidence towards his serviceable intellect.

In that moment he looked quite small and insignificant indeed, lips parted and eyebrows drooped as his twin failures stared him in the face - well, one of them did, but the other didn't care to. The one which had so very often cared quite a lot to. The one that had at some points done so like there was no other place in the world worthy or even extant upon which to look.

"Whatever." Malos stopped the merry-go-round of depression. "Not sure I disagree with you there, cowboy, but look. I mean, it's not hard to not do bad shit, right?"

"Yeah," Mythra started with a hitch in her voice like the whole knotted cube of a Gordian's Rubix had fallen apart in her hand then and there, "it's not. Not when you have a Driver you can trust."

Across from her, Addam's face looked about to perform the same deconstructive descent, but it didn't have the time before Mythra rushed in to give that hug she'd been thinking about ever since they'd returned to the manor. Yes, perhaps to prove something, but mostly to herself. If Malos and Minoth got something out of it...fine by her. She could share. With something like knowing Addam? She couldn't help but.

His arms caught her and didn't hesitate; braced onto her, he was, as much as she was braced into him. "And I do," she whispered into his chest. "And I do."

Mythra was gold and light and golden light. The green accents on her armor had fluorescence, that much has always been obvious and needs no retreading, but then, this Pneuma that she spoke of...truly, something, someone, that would blind unyielding eyes to see. She had to step back before the spike on her diadem impaled her Driver, but it wasn't in a manner acrimonied, agitated, apologetic, as one might have expected.

No, Pneuma was confident. Self-assured. The green was electric yet tempered, step not swaggery but sangfroided. She nodded into her transformation, and the ponytail swung gently.

"Are you ready, Addam?"

"Ready? For what? Did you need something from me after all?"

She smiled. "No, not much. Just to know that you're still with me."

His shoulders sagged relief instead of defeat. "Yes, of course. I'm with you all the way."

"You're not him!"

Minoth was aggravatingly unflappable, standing there with arms crossed. "Of course I'm not. You better get used to it, pretty boy."

Addam wanted to believe that the quip had no malice, that "pretty boy" was just another life's equally fond version of "Prince", but he knew it wasn't so.

"You're not him!" he cried out again, and the Blade looked more annoyed than confused, to say nothing of sympathetic. "Why aren't you him?!"

What was the separation between mind and body? How could this person be so clearly the unmistakable form and factor of Minoth, the proud and powerful and poetic Blade, and yet not him at all? At all!

Mind whirring in a devastatingly uncomfortable storm, Addam stared and stared and willed and stared at the infuriatingly blank patch of skin around Minoth's eye (not the eye itself, never the eye itself). He hated it, hated hated hated it for its so bluntly physical reminder that this Minoth wasn't his, never had been, might never be again, Driver-Blade status be damned.

He felt the weight of his right arm, not very "pretty boy" at all since it had been sixteen years, after all, but still carrying plenty of strength. The muscles were heavy, superimposed between tight and loose in an unfortunate soreness. They were familiar. His body was his and remained his, but this man standing before him with such an air of arrogance and steely boundaries, who at times had felt like an extension of his own self because however else would the boundaries have ever let anyone in, was not his.

He'd had just about enough of this hard-won bullshit, even though he knew Minoth probably reveled in it. The arm swiveled up, shoulder an able socket of rotation, and then the perfect parabola ceased. He javelined his fist at Minoth's face more than punched it, throwing all the force and weight of his memories into the childishly clenched knuckles.

Minoth hardly did more than flinch, because of course he didn't, he was a Blade and his whole aura was imperviousness. Addam absently shook out his hand, scowling and still avoiding eye contact, while he watched a faint blue flush appear and disappear just as quickly underneath the point of impact.

Every influence he had made, every shared moment, every intimate conversation, cast as merely an aberration in the ether to be washed away with clinical efficiency. Unspent tears, lingering since before the awakening, came unbidden to Addam's eyes. With no other recourse, he surged in past the boundaries and wrapped his arms around Minoth's back. The leather was unyielding, the ether deposits glassily masked, and he expected to be shoved down to the floor within moments, but for the time being he tried in vain to dig his fingers into any offering crevice and get some hold, some connectedness, some security.

Addam stood there hugging his Blade to within an inch of his life, and Minoth let him. One might have thought it was just a strange and particularly blessed impulse, that something righteous was telling him that pushing his Driver away in that moment would have been very much not right, but in fact it wasn't that.

(In another, less kind world, the blows would come in pairs and they would knock each other senseless and the love that didn't, couldn't flow would be nowhere in sight nor sound, and Addam with face bloodied would say softly, "You hate me for wanting you to be him," and Minoth, unblemished, would reply with blackest ice in his tone, "I have no feeling for you at all.")

"What's your motivation?"

With his chin clamped over the big, brash collar, eyes staring wobbly at some steel panel on the wall behind them, Addam somehow knew he had to be clever, because this Minoth wouldn't respect him if he wasn't clever. There was no endearing to be done; goofy wouldn't fly. But, what came out wasn't really much of either.

"I'm a man just like you, am I not? I want what's mine."

The foreboding solidity of Minoth's frame, one that had once become such a steadfast comfort, slipped away as Addam fell to the floor. You're not him! He's not yours. Not anymore.

The Wikipedia page for Mongolia says that "horse culture remains integral," but there are no horses in Torna. Oh well, we'll just have to go get Ponios from somewhere they actually canonically appear!

I revisited my love for 1970s sitcoms and rediscovered a trope I just had to incorporate...this is the result. I can only hope to have captured even half of the raw emotion in these scenes, which embody the classic trope of 1970s and 1980s sitcoms that inspired the punch scene. Unfortunately, apparently I don't like it when either I or my very favorite characters have nice things, so it was a doubly crushing blow for us all that they couldn't, y'know, actually hug.

Lastly, I apologize, but this is suddenly so funny to me: Pyra is in parental controls mode, Mythra is a standard user, and Pneuma is on sudo. And you know, she's going up to the main data center. What if she rm -rf's? Just like, accidentally, you know.

Chapter 31: Entangled - "If we can help you we will, soon as you're tired and ill."

Please, I'm a magician! The mistakes you make thrill me! Time for something wonderfully related. First we're teaching you the aesthetic, this is the aesthetic. Then, we learned this aesthetic, but we can discard this aesthetic. And you know, I think that's great, you wanna have flexible minds. You can do almost anything, and I would try almost anything.

Ah, see, this result is so weird, it must live in an alternate reality.

Are you coming back?

...

Please, are you coming back?

"So, how's it going?" Flora asked as brightly as she could, seeing Addam lope a pitiful procession back in through a side door. Minoth followed, gave her a studying look, then strode brusquely on ahead to confer with Malos.

"Not good."

She frowned. "How bad is not good? We're up here, aren't we? We're going to find him, you know. We'll get through this, we always do. You always do."

That was the snapping point. "Flora, I wanted to think so but now I'm not so sure he's in there at all - and we don't even know if he's out there, anyway!" Addam cried, gesturing haphazardly to the upper levels of the tree and the atmosphere at large.

"Honestly, Addam...so what if he isn't? He's just a Blade."

"Just a Blade?!"

"Well, yes. Isn't that how things are with them?"

Oh. A slump inward, now, but still agitated. "The very fact that you're right is probably what makes me so eager to change it. I don't quite see why-- No, I don't see at all, why you can't understand that."

The space of the current level of the World Tree was cold, unfeeling, unnatural, and within it Flora stewed in her predispositions; she had no choice.

"It's simpler this way," she offered at last. "You haven't gamed the system, or anything."

Almost hypocritical, she was. "Flora, you know as well as I do that you don't give an Ellook's hoof about the damned system."

Catching on to something just then, though he hadn't the faintest what, Addam's eyes narrowed with uncharacteristic threat. "Just what is it you're saying? Do you want him to be reset, or however it is we might term it?"

"You love him, don't you." It wasn't a question, as she had avoided his.

"Yes, I...of course, Flora. Of course I love him."

"And does he know?" She gave a quiet wince before correcting herself: "Did he know?"

Dragging the back of a weary hand across his eyes, Addam sighed. "I've told him, but I don't think he believes it."

"Offhand, or genuinely?"

"A mix of both. But when it was...very, very genuinely."

"Ah."

"'Ah'? That's all you have to say? 'Ah'? Flora, can't you see that it's killing me to see him walking around with that same armor, that same gait, those same eyes, and when I look into them he's not looking back? I love him, I love him, with all my heart I love him, and if he doesn't love me not because he chose not to but because he was never even given the choice..."

Flora tapped the toes of her boots methodically on the steel paneling of the floor, realigning the beats of the air, then put a hand out to touch Addam's forearm. "I'm sorry, Addam. I didn't and I don't mean to be unfeeling. It's just, well...don't you dare argue with me on the fact that we should have dealt with all this before."

He mirrored her gesture, but with fingertips on upper arm, the keyhole detail of her dress's shoulders. "You're right. You're always right."

"Maybe. But don't let's make me be right about your Minoth - our Minoth - not being in there anymore."

They made it up, the final push. It wasn't the journey itself that had been harrowing, because nobody was lurking around the great tree, no one who would have cared to do anything about it knew that they went. To be sure, the thing wasn't commonplace, but they had come, and they had gone, and now they were up above Alrest looking down upon it all.

Pneuma, Addam, and Minoth were the only ones who entered the final room. She strode with swift step to the control panel at the far end and keyed determinedly at the menus displayed thereon. Broiling in his own anticipation, Addam suspected that Mythra and even Pneuma herself didn't know exactly why or how was she applying the keystrokes that sped rapidly by. She was duty-bound to bring it off right, but by who or what, it was a mystery.

The minutes were long; her search was careful. Addam wanted, damn his foolish mind, to lean against Minoth, to droop his head down near the Core Crystal that was not the color it should have been, only it was, only it wasn't, only it...perhaps kiss it, because it was beautiful and cherishable either way. But if he did that, well, he was afraid he'd get slapped. Him, afraid of Minoth. Again. But no, he never had been. Oh...

Eventually, Pneuma looked up, staring only at their stoic, separate reflections in the blank central screen to make eye contact. "I found him."

"You're sure?" As if the data and the way in which she processed it could lead towards anything but absolute surety.

"I'm sure. Directory creation date 10/29/3553 at 13:37, last backup modified 06/13/3572 at 07:58."

"That's an odd way to be sure," Addam said uncertainly as he registered and reconciled the times and dates.

"There's no names on these folders," Pneuma returned with a touch of the same inflection, "only serial numbers and then the timestamps in the metadata. And they're grouped by the fact of being currently circulating Blades, so for what it's worth I know this isn't a past incarnation."

Something was wrong, tweaked, with this picture. Addam held up a hand to make distracted counting motions, his silly but surprisingly effective way of marshalling his mind into order. "If that one's marked as current...what about the Minoth we brought up here with us?"

Said Blade squinted at them, one eye fully shut and the other scrunched, calculating. By now, he'd picked up on the finer intricacies of the spiel about restoration, memories, and the like. "I sleep standing up, like a horse. That is to say, I don't sleep. You didn't notice?"

Didn't notice? He couldn't but notice! "I watched you every time, your eyes always shut!" Addam exclaimed, falling into consternation. Creepy, Addam, creepy, Minoth thought - the right word was "Prince", really, but then he wasn't quite able to think it, was he.

"Shut doesn't mean sleeping," Pneuma said quietly. "You did that on purpose, didn't you? You kept yourself from falling asleep so that there'd be no chance of the Minoth we knew getting sealed over and lost to time."

Minoth shuffled his feet. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. Don't ask me why." I don't have to ask you, her searching gaze said, because I think I know. I think I know why you know, too. Addam, fortunately, was too engrossed in emotions to make a rejoinder relevant to much of anything else.

"Minoth, I know by now that the name I call you is just about all that remains of the man I knew, the man I-- The Blade I had before. But he was, and I believe so strongly that you are, so much more than just that. It's selfish, I know, I cannot and will never deny it, but I'm asking you to please, please...come back to me."

"Hey, don't be a savior, P-"

The ever-peakish nose whipped up like a tiny bird alarmed by approaching beast. "What was that?"

"I said, don't be a savior, pretty boy." And let that be it.

Addam's eyes were sorrowful, puppy-doggish in goading Minoth to approach the terminal. Pneuma looked him over patiently. "Minoth, you have to make a choice. Do you wish to retain the memories you have now, or replace them with those retrieved from your past life?"

He propped his fist under his chin and the attached elbow upon his other arm, considering. This was the million-doubloon question. "Normally I'd just say to leave things lie. Doesn't seem right to go messing around with the entire architected system. But...it still feels like there's something missing. Like there always has been. If this is my one chance...I choose my own salvation." A cliché bundle of lines, but an honest one.

She nodded and applied gentle but firm pressure to his Core Crystal, sending him into a secure sleep. It was several minutes before her concentration even showed the slightest signs of easing as she methodically processed the changes to be committed to his Core.

"Prince?"

Addam's heart swelled as Minoth shifted up to crouch on his heels. "Is it really you, Minoth?"

The ex-Flesh Eater grinned, standing tall. "Well you don't have to look so surprised about it!"

Addam nodded earnestly, tears starting to well in his eyes. "Of course, you wouldn't know, old friend. It's no matter. You're here now."

Shaking his head, Minoth ghosted the backs of his knuckles down Addam's cheek. "I do know. I've missed you, my prince."

At the touch, Addam's tears commenced to falling, and he braced both hands on Minoth's blessedly amenable shoulders. Gently clearing her throat, Pneuma broke in to their moment of reunion.

"That's the final piece of the puzzle, Addam. Most Blades are peacefully sealed away upon returning to their Cores. Their memories of their Driver are preserved in a permanent archive, and what of their makeup qualifies to be passed on is extracted. Minoth never got that chance. Though he chose to return to his past life, it was not cleanly broken from these past week. I wasn't altogether confident in my abilities to stitch his consciousnesses back together, but I couldn't leave him sealed there. All of his old memories, and the new ones, are now safe in his Blade body."

His Blade body...and again, what was the difference? No time to wonder: Addam was busy thirstily taking in every bronzed curve of Minoth's face. Yes, he had seen it only minutes before, never mind minutes likening to hours, and the journey truly being only a week long all told anyway, but the brilliance and the warmth that he felt was overwhelmingly new just as it was wonderfully familiar. Hang on, that hadn't been there before...

"Mythra?" A golden flash answered him instantaneously. "You like it? I made it a special challenge to recreate it from memory. ...not that I had a choice."

"Something amiss, Addam?" The prince's hands relaxed into Minoth's shoulders at the reminder that "No, not at all. It's just-- Your scar."

"Hey Aegis, is he alright in the head?"

She smirked. "Was he ever? Nah. That gash around your eye's been missing since you were reawakened."

Minoth's mouth fell slightly open, and he stilled, leaning into Addam's hand moving up to catch his cheek. That made those first moments make a hell of a lot more sense. Oh, he wasn't rejecting the touch now.

"Since the Blade system doesn't account for Flesh Eaters, body composition image backups are only stored for the original Blade, so I had to trace it out by hand. Hope you didn't want the new one too, because I don't feel like going back in and overwriting my work. That system is so fucking disorganized - who names their folders that way? There are spaces in them, can you believe?"

Preoccupied by the receipt of earlier information, Minoth wasn't quite listening to the semantic diatribe. "Overwriting? You don't mean..."

"Yep. That sucker's yours in every awakening you've got left...which is probably zero."

Addam gave a jerk. "Mythra, what do you mean?"

Minoth got cagey, and fast, setting his jaw and crossing his arms. "What, am I some kind of time bomb now? I thought you'd gotten control of your powers," he snapped.

Sighing, Mythra put a hand to her forehead. "Minoth, you have officially gone from 'guy I barely tolerate' to 'Addam-level dumbass'. You've gotta remember that night in Auresco as well as I do."

Minoth began to look suspicious. "Mythra, what are you-"

"You still think you're no different than any other soldier in Addam's militia? Open your eyes! He's as fucking in love with you as you are with him - maybe more! If I can see that, you have to."

Brow still furrowed, Minoth glanced at Addam, who had a hand affixed to each hip and was peering back and forth between both him and Mythra.

"Jin once said to me that he thinks my real affinity will come in the future. I...don't think anybody would argue with that. And I caught what you said then, Minoth. How I wasn't really giving Addam any kind of support, not even friendship. I didn't really do anything about it, though, because after we beat Malos there wasn't any point." There was, and she knew it, but she was getting better at stowing the intrusive, deprecating thoughts.

"But you're more than just a Blade to him. He didn't just keep you around because you could bust some Jagron heads and get in Amalthus's head, or even because he pitied you. You'd be crazy to ever let yourself have another Driver after him."

The conversations in Aureus, Dannagh, Indol, and all the rest flooded his mind. It was a textbook slow-burning escalation, wasn't it - even leaving off the content of the past eight years.

( "Will I see you again next time?"

"Do you want to come back to Torna with me?"

"I rather like the scar - it's so much a part of you."

"Let me steal you away."

"Do you somehow think that I don't care, or that I shouldn't?"

"I love you, Minoth. Do you know, at least?" )

"Do you love me, Addam?"

The joy gleaming off of his prince's face could have lit the sun. "You never were very observant, were you, Minoth?"

"Ugh. You guys are gross in every way." At their bemused glances, Mythra put up defensive hands. "Good ways, good ways!"

"But seriously Minoth, I never had a great opinion of you, and I shouldn't have let that stand. I always figured you were just some opportunistic Indoline Blade who was taking advantage of a prince for his status. Well, like Addam always says, when you assume you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'."

Eyes sparkling, Minoth shared a look with Addam. "Actually, I taught him that one."

The ensuing eyeroll from Mythra was truly worthy of their current locale in scope. "I swear on my father up above us...I can't believe I have two annoying gay dads now!"

Dad in the same way that she had said it accidentally, sarcastically, all those years ago back in Aletta. Thank the stars that it was whole colossal Titanpeds more complex and intricate than that, and that they could finally abandon themselves to parsing it, or abandon parsing it altogether. In just the same fashion, Minoth finally wrapped his arms around Addam and just laughed.

Soon enough, they crossed out into the main control room, and were immediately rushed down by a gleeful Haze shouting "Master Minoth!" She must have sensed his old ether signature, and figured on their success. He caught both of her outstretched hands and interlaced their fingers as neatly as one would the stranded braids in her hair.

"It's good to see you again, Haze." Her smile was impossibly endearing as she felt through his gloves to test his ether flow.

After a moment of concentration, she nodded firmly. "Good. Your ether flow is as stable as it was before-- Oh, well..."

Minoth laughed heartily. "It's alright, Haze. I'm well aware of what you all went through to get the old me back. I'll be sure to write about it - your toils deserve an epic!"

Lighting up somewhow brighter, Haze threw her arms about his waist and squeezed tight. The technicalities over, Xander scurried in to join her. Jin and Malos shared a look, commiserating over their excitable charges, and Lora and Flora elbowed them both in turn.

A peaceful lull came over the room's mechanical whirs, as Flora moved to Addam's side and quietly pressed a kiss to his cheek. Again, the scions of his heart were in large part gathered in one place, and it seemed that nothing could mar the moment.

Well, one thing could dull it slightly. "How exactly do you know about what's happened?" Lora wondered, and Mythra cut in with the explanation.

"Thanks to Malos's ham-fisting of the whole Core-repairing process," she started, pausing to exchange glares with her fellow Aegis, "there was still some data lingering in the unawakened crystal. Basically, old Minoth was in new Minoth's head, seeing everything that went on but without being able to make any choices of his own." For the most part.

Despite the depth of their journey, Xander didn't see the solemnity in this, and was all excited questions. "What was it like, Uncle Minoth?"

Minoth's voice was hollow. "Being a spectator to my own life...it was painful. It felt like I was being reduced to a shell of Amalthus's influence. I wasn't just standoffish, I was cold to dear companions."

"I didn't really mind it, honestly," Lora said. At the ring of confused faces, she amended, "I'm just used to dealing with cold characters, I suppose." (This last came with a quirk of a smile.)

Jin gave a groan at the trite comment, but was heartened nonetheless. "We don't hold it against you, Minoth," he said matter-of-factly. Minoth nodded in return. "That's good to hear. Thank you all."

A nagging thought resurfaced. "Say, Addam. How come you never told the other me you were a prince?"

Caught out, the referenced royal only shrugged. "It was my best shot at getting you to stop calling me that. But, Minoth-- I'd like you to keep saying it, whenever you want. I never thought I could have missed it so."

"It will be as you wish, my prince," Minoth replied with an exaggerated flourish.

Laughing at her husband's consternation, Flora remarked, "He really hasn't changed a bit."

"You're right there, Flora. I might have my memories back, but there's still one thing I don't understand."

Minoth set his jaw then and pointed an accusatory finger at Malos. "Why, or should I say how, is he here?" Oh, right, that.

"Heh. Still an asshole," Malos drawled.

"What, and you aren't?" Minoth shot back, calculated but just about as cocky.

"I don't think my Driver's old enough to say bad words yet, so no, legally I'm barred from being an asshole."

"And off the record?"

"I'm...working on it. Maybe."

Working on what? On who? I'm not like you, they'd said in happenstance agreement, and now, indeed, they still weren't.

"Might any of that work involve trekking up to see the big man himself?" Indeed it might.

Up they went, in and around, found the place without issue because of the ever-tolling bell that issued from within, approached with due trepidation, but in fact he wasn't there, and soon enough, neither were they.

Don't wanna name the months? Just don't! Use the numbers! Fuck yeah, computers!!!

I'm conveniently ignoring the details of real Elysium and whatever else that's up there because: A) I fully admit to being somewhat lacking in and on actual endgame XC2 lore; B) I examined the main story from a character-focused study lens and I decided I can pull the same maneuver hereafter for what we'll call consistency; C) I don't wanna deal with that so it's just not appearing here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Chapter 32: The Chamber of 32 Doors - "Down here, I'm so alone with my fear."

if you were given the chance to steward out the universe in its time of dying, would you take it?

what price ignorance? what value that gentle, misguided bliss?

go knowing, created creature. go taking the wisdom a higher being deigned to give. oh, there is free will, there are things human holier than any lofted cloud, but this sees no equal. before you is the paragon of experience, and if you refuse it out of foolish fear, your first glorious gift of free will, so treasured, so revered, was a mistake.

Lora awoke in an uncomfortably foreign haze of light and heat, unable to see much of anything. Her immediate instinct was to feel around for Jin and Haze, as much for their cooling capabilities as to ascertain their safety. But such an action was somehow patently infeasible at this juncture.

She couldn't feel their presences in the least - and yet, there were two others there with her. Oh...were they the sources of the oppressive swirling ether? Had to be...the room was so despondently empty otherwise.

"Who's there?"

"Lora, is that you?" A brisk voice wafted over through the sulter. "I'm here too, Brighid," a voice that was definitely Mythra's cut in.

Lora gasped, about to choke on the ether-clouded air. With another sound to help triangulate, the two Blades soon appeared in front of her.

"C-can't breathe...too much--" She half expected an outbreak of bickering between the two over who was being more overbearing, but none came and they simply concentrated to lessen their own ether flows.

"I hadn't noticed our auras being more intense until you pointed it out," Mythra muttered.

"Just where are we, anyway?" Brighid asked, cutting to the more pressing question.

"Top of the World Tree. Except, the Architect wasn't there," Mythra answered her shortly.

Lora's eyes widened. "Oh, gosh. Brighid, you weren't even here with us, so that really puts me at a loss."

"A little more context, Mythra?" Mythra nodded, wincing.

"I don't have a great memory of what Father looked like up in Elysium, but when we got up there I could tell that empty space was where he was supposed to be. Malos walked towards it first, and the next thing I knew we were here. I'm guessing the others are probably somewhere similar."

The Fire Blade put a hand to her chin, considering. "Perhaps this is some kind of trial?"

"A trial?" Lora repeated.

"To test our characters. Assuming the Architect is at least partially benevolent, he may have spared Flora and Alexander from any danger that will come of it, and paired me with Mythra by the same token."

As Brighid finished outlining her theory, a point of electric blue light began coalescing on the far wall. Straightening up, Lora clapped her hands.

"Right then! I'm sure we can handle a fight, even if you're not my original Blades. That is, if you two can get along...?"

The old rivals smiled wanly at each other. "Yeah, I can handle her." "...if I must."

The light swallowed them up in a brilliant singularity.

As further evidence to Brighid's hunch, it was Hugo who awoke next. The sudden presence of his full armor kit, so bulky as it was even, or especially, on his small frame, was the first clue that something was amiss. Not far behind that, of course, was the swirl of dark wind that coated his eyes and ears.

"Brighid? Aegaeon? Are you there?" He was capable on his own, to be sure, but immaterial threats such as this still made him reach for his cherished companions, the pair of metaphorical sword and shield. The ground was cold, inorganic, and so unlike Mor Ardain that he was suddenly homesick.

"I don't see them here, Hugo." Minoth emerged from the fog, clutching a shivering Haze to his chest. Or, at least, his booming voice did. Hugo could discern the souls present, but couldn't do much else. The fact that the Flesh Eater had called him by his name sans title was a fact filed away in the back of his mind.

"The atmospheric ether is impairing my sight, Minoth. Can you do anything about it?"

"Ah. That'd be Haze, right?" There was a faint rustling noise as Minoth attempted to brace the Wind Blade and reassure her that there were no ghosts present, only Hugo. But what was he doing here - wouldn't he have to be a ghost?

"Pardon the intrusion, Your Majesty," Minoth prefaced sardonically before roughly joining a hand each from all three of them. Haze yelped, then stilled as she came around to the reality that the young emperor was all too solid to be an apparition.

"Oh, I see. The overabundant ether flow in here must be coming from us, Master Minoth. Concentrate on your Core and try to restrain it!"

The darkness nearly flushed them out, even as the wind dissipated, and she hastily manifested her crosier to try to stem the rampant cloud of purple particles.

"Huh? My powers aren't working here!" As Minoth finally got the right handle on his element and returned visibility to the room, he remarked, "Well, better to find out now than later."

Things were unsettlingly still. Hugo decided to hazard a barometerizing joke. "A little forward with the leader of the second most powerful nation in Alrest, are you not?"

Minoth crossed his arms proudly. "I seem to recall you once saying that the two of us were as tightly bound as yourself and the prince Addam."

The emperor laughed, seeming just as youthful as he had on that day years ago. "Indeed I did, and indeed we are. I am glad to see you here as well, Haze."

She curtsied, but merely in pleasantry, not in scurrying deference. "Lord Hugo, I only wish I could tell you where here is."

He motioned to the glowing portal opening up behind her. "Shall we find out?"

The air around Addam was a bleak, damp chill. Fortunately, the driving forces behind the effect soon shrank away, but there was nothing in its place to truly ameliorate the uninhabitable climate.

"Addam, are you hurt?"

"Wha-?" The prince tried to shake off his disease as he looked up to see Jin and Aegaeon each offering him a hand. He took both and drew himself up.

"Not hurt, my friends, but damned cold. Gah- speaking of..." The muscles in his back were woven into a series of devious knots and stitches without remedy.

"Master Addam, you should rest, to avoid further injury," Aegaeon cautioned. Addam shook off the pain and the warning all at once.

"No time. If you're here, then I worry for Hugo's safety as well."

The Water Blade's face took on a grimmer cast and he stood back, fists clenched at his side. "I am ashamed to have forgotten my duty to His Majesty for even a second."

"Not in the middle of any pressing engagements, were you?" Addam asked with tepid joviality, quirking a eyebrow and earning a low groan. Seeing that his attempt at humor had fallen flat, he turned to Jin.

"Jin, is this chill in the air a result of your powers?" The Ice Blade had produced his mask from some pocket underneath his armor's train, and nodded, expression still.

"The ether level here is...unnatural." Addam clapped hands on both their shoulders. "Well, men, in that case, I propose we make tracks towards somewhere else. Are you with me?"

As each third of the fated nine emerged underneath a central rotunda, they got only faint flashes of recognition both from and for the other groups, before a violent aggression overtook them. Lora threw a terrified glance at her companions.

"Brighid, Mythra, do you feel that?"

Brighid's face was clear anguish, despite the lack of expression from her eyes. "This urge to harm Emperor Hugo and Aegaeon...I cannot let it stand. But I feel powerless against it!"

Mythra nodded. "Ditto. I've never felt this angry at Addam, or Minoth either. This isn't us."

Nevertheless, Lora could sense her stance shifting, and she knew it was tuning in response to every movement Haze and Jin made. "I don't want to get any closer to them - I'm afraid we'll hurt them."

"Jin! Haze!" she called out, hoping to make a pacifist first move. They both seemed to lock in their gaze, but the voice Lora heard coming out of her mouth was markedly harsher, colder, than she had ever known. Across the room, Minoth was trying the same thing, but his careful shout of "Addam! My prince!" came out arrogant and spat.

The prince's face swam with a cadre of flinches and scowls, none of them ringing true. Aegaeon was rushing towards Hugo, and Haze readied her staff even though she knew it wouldn't work. Mythra and Brighid shared bewildered looks, completely lost when even battle couldn't help them prevail. They all began moving against their own accord, simultaneously allied and enemied between and across ranks.

It was Jin who made the first move, arcing his nodachi with deadly precision directly into Lora's jugular. At the last second, the flat of the blade was what struck her, and when she squeezed an eye open she saw her Blade pulling a shaking hand to his mask, trying but failing to claw it off. Her limbs moved without her assent, and she kicked him away with a fierce blow to his abdomen.

"Lora!" Mythra dove in and pulled her aside, underneath a spray of dark bullets, then spun back to face the threat and throw out her sword for a Terminal Flash to clear some distance - only Photon Edge came out instead, much more offensive and leaving Lora alone as she zipped to the other side of the room.

In her mind, Brighid was nervously stepping, her footwork less confident than it had ever been, as she summoned up the minimum ether needed to draw out a Heat Haze, but in the spacious, empty hall, her boots came down with decisive clacks, a Wheel of Penance about to erupt - and yet Haze was stunningly unbothered by the foe before her.

Hugo and Addam's swords were locked, the shorter man using his shield to make up for his equally shorter sword as a lever. It was unthinkable, but Aegaeon found himself exploiting the opening between the two armanents, almost making to assassinate his most beloved liege.

Backed into one another, Addam and Jin could only make vague grunts as to their intended next moves...and then they began to turn on each other as well. The feeble blue bonds that the Blades had been able to foster with Drivers who, though friends, were not their own, shrank away and vanished.

Minoth, blocking Brighid's whips high above his head with his daggers, jumped back to scan the room for an opening, and nary an impulse prevented him from firing on Haze or Hugo. It was almost as nauseating as the initial brain-twisting influence that had led him to be attacking any of his cherished comrades, and it was tending from passive to active that way sickeningly fast.

Mythra had made it back to Lora, and now used the proximity to whale as many blows as she could before her legs were yanked out from under her by a battle braid. Aegaeon's focus on Hugo became an opportunity for Addam, and he knocked them both over with a Legion Scatter.

More and more, they were all exhausted. With nine of them present, there was hardly a moment of stillness. Blade on Driver, Driver on Blade, Blade on Blade and those from the same team striking with opposing elements that made the intensified agony doubly worse.

The wounds started to get real, too. Lora landed a punch-kick combo at precisely the right point to break Minoth's nose, and he couldn't bleed anymore but damn did it hurt. His inverted grip was a boon in being able to reposition the botched mass of ether and cartilage without sacrificing his readiness, and once more he surveyed the battle.

Addam was struggling to lift his greatsword, Hugo's shield was slipping up his arm and constricting his movements, Brighid and Aegaeon had each other neutralized and at swordpoint, Mythra was rushing on Haze and Jin, and the latter was about to thrust the tip of his blade through the head of the former's crosier - down through to her Core Crystal.

"Make it stop, damn it!"

Malos's voice thundered down from the rotunda, and they all finally took what could hardly be called a breather.

Lora dared to peer across the room at Jin, and in between dizzy breaths they made eye contact. Suddenly, the breaths were less desperate and more relieved.

Aegaeon and Brighid turned remorsefully to Hugo, who laid down his weapons and hugged them both despite their airs and contrition. Haze limped over to Minoth, wordlessly pulled him down to the floor, and began to cast healing ether over his disfigured face. One by one, the other seven joined them.

Addam was the first to find voice. "Is anyone else badly hurt?"

He got no reply, however, as the background shifted in a bland, dimensionless whirl. When they came back to after the brief outage, the Ardainian trio had disappeared, and all their little scrapes and bruises were gone. (Minoth's nose was still tender and sore, but he might have been imagining that.)

In front of them was Malos, with a look of stormy yet hollow worry the likes of which they'd never seen on the Dark Aegis's face. "...I was wrong."

"Malos?" Mythra prodded gently.

"About humans. And Blades, too. Infighting, death wishes, cynicism, whatever you wanna call it, that's not them. It's him."

Jin thought he could see the larger tapestry this idea was a thread of, but he led with a more practical issue to make sure.

"That battle...was that the Architect's doing?"

Malos nodded, clenching his jaw. "That was him, driving you. All of you."

"So the Architect really did ordain this? Our precious Driver's so-called 'salvation'?"

Malos eyed his fellow Dark Blade and barked a laugh. "Nah. Let me explain it again."

"Dear old Dad opened up a communication link with me, and said if that was really how I saw humanity, why not show me what it looks like, full tilt? He was angry with me, but I think even angrier with himself, for letting one of his creations fuck up another so badly."

(In fact, Malos was being reductive. What the Architect had said was something more along the lines of "If this is truly how you see the people of Alrest, then why don't I show you what that would mean? Why don't I make your family brutalize each other, kill each other on the cruel peaks of humanity like you think they want to, deep down?"

And Malos had objected in the obvious, immediate way: "They're not my family."

"If they are not, then why should you care if they harm each other?"

"That's..." He clenched his fists at his sides. "It shouldn't matter. They don't deserve that, whether they are or they aren't.")

Jin was steely in his disbelief. "If he's so dissatisfied with the state of the world, why doesn't he do anything about it? Stop the war, the endless struggle for power?"

Malos crossed his arms. "I think he wants us to figure it out for ourselves. And not like a cruel experiment, either. People like you are doing a hell of a lot to work against worms like Amalthus. You got one Aegis already, right? Maybe even two." He lowered his eyebrows and smiled at Mythra, a sibling's shared glance.

"That's what he wants to see. That's why he created a world in the first place. And...that's what he put us here for."

She nodded, just as tentative. "I'm still working on the whole point-of-life thing, but you people are helping me get it."

"Mythra..." Addam was looking at her with a mix of pride and sorrow. "Come on, save the tears for later. Malos, where are Xander and Flora?"

"I got him to leave them out of the simulation, so they should be around here somewhere..." As if on cue (read: it was), a side door opened and Addam's wife and son stepped out.

"Alright, we're all accounted for!" Lora exclaimed.

"One last thing, Malos." The Dark Aegis cocked his head at Addam. "Do you think Hugo and the others are aware that they were here?"

He shrugged. "Hell if I know. You know what they say - the Architect works in mysterious ways." Before any more mysterious ways could befall them, the group rushed back to the elevator.

Several Sovereigns had gathered in formation to mete their final descent of the massive tower. The party wasn't particularly put off by the sentinels' appearance as weapons were readied on both sides, but Mythra held back an eager Minoth and protective Addam with due force.

"Newly modified resonance," she offered in vague explanation. "Won't be exactly like you're used to, at first. Stay in the rear guard, Addam."

So, indeed, Addam took rear guard, and Minoth stood far to the back, fingers itching to twirl his gunknives and offer at least some support. But, he couldn't do that without a Driver now. He was ready to admit that it was more than slightly frustrating - watching the vanguard switches, seeing myriad great opportunities for a clever bullet volley.

"Mythra?" he called out as she backflipped towards him once more, letting Addam slide forward underneath her with an Illustrious Slash.

"You want in?" she answered, heaving breaths but smiling broadly nonetheless. "And how!"

They swapped in a swirling blend of light and dark particles, but something gold remained. Minoth struggled to keep concentration on the foe ahead; that affinity link felt, if you'd pardon the crass description, fucking exquisite.

"Hilo!" came the shout, almost autonomous, as he found himself handily spinning his weapons through a haze of darkness. Addam's next attack connected with absurd force and absolutely demolished the final Sovereign's last twinges of power.

The ensuing dissipation of their battle affinity line was sobering, to say the least. But when his Driver turned around, grinning like a fool from ear to ear (no, literally), Minoth had to take a careful look out the space elevator's window to make sure the sun itself hadn't ascertained their position and approached.

"Mythra, I still trust that you've taken your comment of earlier to heart - I've never felt quite that strong of an ether link!"

"Hey, no offense taken here," she said, more genuinely carefree than anyone would usually peg her to be.

"Minoth, I've seen that look on your face before! Feeling alright?" He almost winked, but Minoth couldn't be sure of it. "Never better, my prince."

"Lora, Jin, Haze, everything ship-shape?" Oh, he was walking away. Well, it was selfish to expect more, wasn't it? Come on, Minoth, where's your steely side?

Never let it be said that Amalthus's influences were nothing to him; he clung to them, sometimes, though he didn't like to admit it. He had once respected the man, that he wouldn't deny. If Amalthus had influenced him, and in particular Malos, who had influenced the monk to begin with? Yes, those bandits, but...come on, really, those bandits?

Architect, where had all these thoughts been when they were riding passively on Azurda's back? He scrambled to create a mental filing system by which to categorize the threads of machination for later use.

Quibbling in his own mind left Minoth the majority unawares of what everyone else was doing. It was Jin who counted heads and pulled him along.

"Jin, that bond..." The Ice Blade gave a rare smile. "I'm glad you finally know what it feels like. You deserve it, Minoth."

"You remember, the first time we met, how I said that almost felt like how things were supposed to be?" Jin nodded. "I don't just think, I damn well know it now."

"I wish you well in knowing it for years to come."

Minoth clapped a hand across Jin's back, and they walked on. Down and out of the tower they went, emerging at the bottom where their friendly neighborhood son of the Tornan Titan lay waiting.

I swear on my life I came up with this almost entirely accidentally as a mirror to the events of canon, after throwing together a what-if scenario for swapped-around Driver-Blade[s] teams - I just seem to keep doing that! In the process, I've also retconned a bit of XC2's own retcon of Klaus's whole...deal, so there you have it.

Chapter 33: More Fool Me - "Since you've gone, too long have I lay alone, not knowing which way to turn."

alma mater
almond matter
milky way
do almonds matter?

"Now, my dear Minoth, you and I are going to have a talk." Surprisingly, Minoth found himself completely amenable. "I'm all ears, my dear Addam," he replied with a fond smirk.

Addam took his hand and began tracing idle patterns in the palm, lazy as the ebbing clouds. Azurda was swimming slow and calm, with the goal of not riling Ophion and thus the watchful eyes of Indol. Since they were no longer traveling skyward, there was no need to stop off on Mor Ardain, though Mythra wanted to so that she could boast to Brighid about her masterful achievements. Well, not boast any longer; they'd both gotten more complacent with one another, though spending less time together meant that they had found new differences as well. They had the Architect's trial to discuss, too.

"You remember when I first mentioned to you that Flora and I were to be wed?" Addam broke the silence. "I remember," Minoth answered steadily.

"It sounds cold to admit, but we really got married for political reasons, not because we were so madly in love. Of course I love her, but it's practical, just the same way she is," Addam mused. "And, just as polite society expects one to have a proper wife and kids, a man is supposed to have only one life partner. Even in Torna. It's been years since marriages between humans and Blades were common, and those where both spouses are the same gender fell out of fashion even earlier. Really, I don't see why."

Minoth studied his Driver quizzically. "No?" "No," Addam replied with a single noble shake of his head.

"A Blade can be many things to a Driver. A companion, a guardian, a ward, a sibling. But all of those relationships command a tremendous deal of trust. A good Driver tries to give everything to their Blade, just as the Blade lives every day giving their whole being to their Driver. That's why I never did very well by Mythra; we didn't trust each other with our individual fears, not truly."

The index finger moving in circles paused, pondered, then started again. "Our relationship could have been much worse if I hadn't tried, even though somewhat against her will, to show her that I cared. Call me overly emotional, but I don't see how you can keep up such an arrangement without telling each other that you love them, somehow. If you don't, what's the point?"

Rolling the thoughts around in his mind, Minoth cocked his head. "An even exchange it might be, but this isn't the place for something to be transactional," he offered, to continue the idea.

His fingers got a slight squeeze. "That's it exactly. Has anyone ever told you you've got a way with words?" Addam purred sweetly. Minoth swatted him away.

"I'm not saying you've got to go around all lovey-dovey every day, no matter the character of the relationship. Look at Lora and Jin - their bond is as strong as anything, but they don't say a word about it. Still, I like to lend a hand, a hug, a kiss when I can. It's far too important to leave the interpretation up to chance."

He laughed gently, even a little sorrowfully. "Maybe it's all that politics they taught me, making me be tactical like this."

"Take it from me, Prince, that's not your forte." A louder laugh this time, and a smile. "A joke, a joke, Minoth!"

Then, Addam tamed the grin and got serious once more. "First, we were friends, acting as partners in battle. Then, for that brief time, we were fighting partners, trying but rather failing to be good friends. Now we're both, and I couldn't be happier."

The prince reached over and took his Blade's other hand. "I do love you, Minoth, and not just as some throwaway retort. I've cared for you for such a long time, and I don't want you to live another day thinking that you're not so loved by us all."

Untraining his gaze from Minoth's eyes, Addam saw the warm smile dancing at his partner's lips. "I'll try not to forget it, my prince."

"Oh, don't you think that I'll let you! Come on, say it back!"

The Blade drew his hands back and propped them under his chin. "I love the way the sun shines in your eyes," he started slowly, gingerly. "I love that silly little ponytail you have," he said, reaching out to brush it softly with a reverent finger. "I love your laugh, and your honesty, and your awful, unbalanced form with that ridiculous sword." Addam's adoring face shifted into an ever-so-slightly indignant one at this, but soon melted back into undivided attention.

"I love how no matter what's ahead of us, you make everything seem so young and hopeful, without losing your focus and maturity. Now, one day, you'll be stubbly and covered in crow's feet, and I'll still look the same. But Addam," he reached out and ran a gloved thumb over his prince's chin and around to the cheek, "I don't think I could ever love you any more or less. If I wrote a book about it, I doubt I'd get anywhere near finished in that time."

"A book? Not a play?" Minoth grinned. "Of course not! How could I trust anyone else to play my part at my prince's side? Even if I could, I...wouldn't want to."

Addam closed his eyes, taking in the heartfelt words. When he opened them again, Minoth could tell there was a little dampness lingering underneath the lids. "You've got to warn me when you're about to wax poetic, Minoth," he protested feebly, wrapping an arm around his Blade's shoulder nonetheless.

Minoth reciprocated, and they watched the clouds roll by together, peaceful as could be with Flora, Xander, Malos, Jin, Lora, Haze, and Mythra all coming to join them along the top of Azurda's shoulder. Was it a gift too great? All in all, maybe not. If Minoth had to hazard a guess, he'd say something like this was more what the Architect had intended when he created humans and Blades to live together. Hell on earth, indeed!

All in all, Minoth and Flora had a good, companionable relationship. At times they took almost an equal share of managing Addam's foibles, and then those he had passed on to Xander, while at others Flora reined in Minoth's far-too-dry sensibilities and he put a capable berth between her and her own doubts.

They got along, and it was simple. It made sense; to each other, they were just good people who navigated the same roughly peacetime world. Jokes always came at the same mid-level, never too rarefied or too deep.

Did the relationship lack strength? Perhaps, but you'd have a hell of a time locating exactly why, given how strong and personable the two people in it were.

They watched in that companionable silence as the father and son made a comical effort to catch some of the larger fish streaming easily by in the still current of the nocturnal Cloud Sea. Well, Addam was making his own effort, while Malos was trying and failing to help his Driver, and Mythra's presence had been replaced by that of an excitable Haze. The former was making idle chit-chat with Lora, and Jin dangled his legs off the side of their transport Titan's neck, taking Azurda's rumbles in one ear and gazing into his mask, remarkably brittle in his hands, out the other.

"It all seems so simple now," Minoth said, breaking the silence. Flora hummed, uninquisitive. Nimble fingers tucked stray wisps of hair underneath the braids from whence they had come, less fidgeting and more completing an objective.

"Like it's all tied up too neatly." It wasn't flailing about in the dark to get her to bite on the conversation, but then this was important. Suddenly, the coiffing was complete, and she offered a uncharacteristically cryptic response.

"If it's simple, it seems complicated. If it seems complicated, it's simple. 'In consequence, and so on.' Isn't that what you would say?"

He turned an animated face on her. "Why does everyone insist on teasing me about that line?"

Flora's nose scrunched and the corners of her eyes wrinkled gently. "Because it's so very like you. Because it's a little silly, a little inconsequential, but a lot profound."

"Are you calling me inconsequential, Mrs. Origo?" Perhaps - mirth twinkled in her eyes.

"Ah- Don't say it! I see what you mean." Minoth rubbed at the corner of his jaw. "Give me a little exposition on that."

"Your relationship with Addam. One would think, after sixteen years, that it would be complicated. But really, at it's core, it's so very simple. You just love each other, in all those complicated little ways. Sometimes like brothers, sometimes like mutual guardians, sometimes just like old war buddies. Now, hopefully, something that doesn't truly match any of those. Consider, then, Addam's relationship with me."

Minoth started uncomfortably, a dull heat rising over his forehead. "Flora-" "Let me finish," she stopped him calmly.

"It seems that it should be infinitely simple. A loving man and his loving wife, their chosen trades agriculture and education. Their child raised with due care and diligence, and a happy home. But the man is an illegitimate prince, the home is technically an imperial holding, the child is a little more sheltered than he should be. It becomes complicated. And finally, the complete equation of us all. It screams complication and the illness of adults."

It screams adultery, he thought. "But Minoth," she turned up her chin and studied his face without defiance, "doesn't our little life seem simple?"

He nodded slowly. "It's as natural as the cadence of a phrase." Flora's own cadence was as if she was explaining improper fractions to a child, mixed with something simultaneously a little more restrained and a little more free.

"So then, don't worry so. It's like you always tell me - don't doubt yourself, because you do your work well. You live your life well. My organizational efforts are not perfect, your pursuit of an upright character is not perfect, but in that imperfection they do exactly what they need to do."

It was a wonderfully down-to-earth sentiment, and in that instant Minoth could understand so easily why Flora and Addam did manage to complement each other so well.

"I...I've kissed him, you know." Not "we've kissed" - what a horrible, dirty thing, then. But, still, the flimsy confession escaped him at last, as her gaze was measured, undiminished, turned towards the fishing troupe.

"Somehow I think you're the only other one who has. We're all the chaste type, and Addam's by far the most gregarious, but you've known him longer than I have. He used to be more shy, in that way. After all, no one else was showing him affection. No one was making him feel that he was wanted, not even his father."

Minoth couldn't help but give a rueful chuckle, finishing the thought: "And that's how he became the prince we know today. Giving all his strength to loving others. I doubt he even hoped it would come back to him."

This time, Flora locked in eye contact. "I used to be jealous. When I was much younger, I used to want to be a princess. Just a little bit. But I soon found out that Addam would never be the man to make me feel like that. For him, utter devotion is to every cause he takes up, not to one main kept at heart. He's adoring, but he will never worship."

"When Xander was born, I thought 'ah, finally, he's come home, it will be just us', and waved away his little scheme about adopting a gaggle of fair-hearted adventurers to live inside the manor so soon after such a swath of them had appeared for the militia."

She seemed only slightly guilty about Minoth's ashen look. "Doesn't this answer your question? No teacher makes up a test with every answer in a row being either true or false, not even the Architect. You're a playwright, aren't you? Here's your conflict, after all."

He crossed his arms and pulled himself up to his full height, bearing down over the prince's petite wife with a proud sneer creeping up over the side of his lips. "Usually I avoid indulging in scenes where I'm the cause of it."

Flora didn't anger, didn't admonish, only sympathized. "I don't like it either. That's why I smiled through the twinges of jealousy. I've well accepted it by now, but neither you nor I nor Addam can escape the truth that once was. It's our own history."

"And now the next act...?" Addam was looking back towards them with a peculiar expression.

"He needs both of us, and the both of us need him, to center ourselves and take hold of something. I'm sure in our own small ways we need each other."

The expression, Minoth realized, was one of relief. "So Minoth, don't worry about how it looks. If we're all lucky, no one's paying attention anyway."

Minoth laughed, loud and long. "The devil take you, Flora! I always knew we'd get along." He was maybe lying, a little bit, but she didn't need to know that. ...did she?

Nevertheless, the pair linked arms and stepped over to join the rest, who had by now abandoned fishing and were passing around a package of stale biscuits that Haze had produced, spreading out blankets to watch the stars. When they had finally all settled down, Xander was sitting between Addam's legs, eagerly picking Malos's brain about this constellation or that, while Flora, cheek cupped in hand, and Minoth, propped up on his elbows, lay on either side.

Peering over Addam in some unspoken communication, they each pressed a kiss to the prince's closest cheek, and he smiled happily, so happily. "I was worried, you know."

Flora nestled closer to his side, and Minoth leaned all the way back with hands behind his head. "Now, now, Addam, leave that to the two of us! We've got you, don't you worry."

At Addam's laughter, Xander tumbled over the right knee and fell between his uncle and his father. "Uncle Minoth, I can see Libra and Taurus!"

Minoth caught the boy easily and held him with arms wrapped under his shoulders and around his chest. "Do you now? And which ones are those?"

That signature nose scrunch, and the hand scratching tousled head. "Well, it's those two." He pointed with his free arm. "Malos says they're supposed to look like a set of scales, and a bull, but I don't see it."

Minoth nodded, not even being patronizing in his consideration. "Indeed! Much too abstract to reflect what's really down here on earth." But then, if it's simple, it seems complicated, right? Humans could make a mess out of anything.

They passed some minutes in that agreeable silence, just gazing up at the stars, but then Addam got back down to his favorite pastime: stirring the proverbial pot with some goofball nonsense or other.

"You know, Minoth, it occurs to me that I don't have a pet name for you." The ex-Flesh Eater arched an eyebrow. "You've been losing sleep over that?"

Addam laughed. "Not at all, but you've had one for me practically since the moment we met."

Minoth leaned back and crossed his arms. "Can't say I know what you're talking about, Prince."

Xander giggled, and damn, that kid was going to give him hell when he got older. "What?"

"Even I know, Uncle Minoth." It was indeed patently obvious, and Addam studied his Blade mischievously.

"I started asking you to stop calling me 'Prince' just about the same time as I inherited Aletta. I figured I might as well stop trying to be a princeling and just be a man who cared for his lands and his people. But you never stopped...not that I saw you much after that."

Minoth stared blankly forward. "He was there. At your wedding."

The prince nodded. "Indeed, I'm surprised any delegations attended at all. If Zettar had his way, none would have."

"That's when I started really trying to get away myself. Maybe by still calling you my prince...I'd made believe that I hadn't run away."

Flora leaned across Addam's chest and offered her steadying opinion. "It's far from a perfect world, Minoth. Don't make yourself out to be any more of a coward than you know is true. It's alright."

He shook his head, ponytail making that wonderful shimmering sound that hair inexplicably does. "There but for the grace of the Architect go I, always."

Oh really? She smacked his hand. "I'm not one to deify my husband, but it's there but for the grace of Addam Origo you go, I rather think!"

Caught serendipitously in between his partners' battle of wits and worldliness, Addam stretched out his arms to pull them both in.

"Are you two fighting over me?" he intoned playfully.

Minoth scoffed, but he couldn't keep his smile down. "I'm never sure with that one." Indeed, Flora looked catlike in her victory, and she remained curled over Addam, her head tucked into the crook of his neck.

"Oh, don't fret, darling, I've two hands," Addam simpered.

"Yes, and your son's about to fall off the Titan because of it."

Or, he was, but Malos and Mythra had stepped over to catch him - he still couldn't swim, after all. Well, nothing to worry about, then.

The happy ending had started and stopped so many times that Minoth wasn't sure quite what to do next, but when that happened, reaching out for his prince was never a bad bet.

Azurda is beeg boy because...I said so. :D

Chapter 34: The Musical Box - "You stand there with your fixed expression, casting doubt on all I have to say."

are we too old to say i love you?
energy is matter is distance is time is money
the energy that always manages to run between us
no matter what
inverse of distance as it is
periodically functional over time
is priceless

The world-crossing journey had left them all, in a phrase, fucking exhausted, Addam, Minoth, and the Aegises particularly so. It was some indiscriminate evening time when they got back - back home. Now wasn't a chance for more family moments, since they'd had plenty of them on the inward swing. No, it was just time for some real, unfettered rest.

Xander took Malos and Mythra out to the side roof, and they watched him and talked quietly as he napped. Flora said something about getting in to make dinner soon, but everyone saw right through her line about "just lying down for a moment" in the den. Lora, Haze, and even Jin piled onto a bed in some guest bedroom or other. All their bone-deep aches needed couching as they waited for Azurda himself to rest up and fly near enough to Mor Ardain to give Hugo a signal.

Addam groaned heartily as he sank down onto the edge of his bed. "Titan's foot...I could sleep for a week," he sighed, and didn't even need to coax Minoth to join him. They worked together to heave off all the various bits and bobs of armor, the Blade tasked with his Driver's countless pieces of leg plate and Addam handily removing Minoth's chest piece before settling idly into combing out his hair.

"All done, Prince," Minoth soon stated, rising up to slip deft fingers underneath the snaps that attached his chaps and drop them off.

Addam stretched, folded up his golden waistcloth, and flopped all the way back, head hitting pillow. "Let me know when Nuncle gets back, will you?"

"Addam, wait." He cracked one eye open. "Yes?"

"Didn't you feel anything...different with our affinity link?" The prince sat obligingly up.

"Not particularly, no. It was stronger than usual, I think, but I've felt the same kind of thing from Mythra. Why, did you?"

Minoth drew a shaky breath and nodded, tentative at first but then markedly decided. "Was it good?" He made fierce eye contact then and nodded even harder, breathing out.

"That's wonderful news! I am glad this worked out well for you, Minoth," said Addam jovially, and made to go back to falling asleep.

"Addam," Minoth started again, feeling himself get almost whiny. "Hmm?" came the hum, eyes still shut. "Can we try it again, now?"

Rather than sitting back up, Addam pulled Minoth down to lie beside him. "I'm certainly game if you are."

Smiling nervously at last, the Blade concentrated on channeling ether to his Driver. This was different than before; it had always just been a side effect of fighting at Addam's side, and some of the more physical memories from the pre-Tree portion of their adventure were as yet fairly hazy for him to reference what a true fresh Blade would do. They'd probably remain that way, but that was more than fine.

Where did a human even receive ether, anyway? Their heart, maybe? Most Core Crystals were in a similar enough place, after all. He tried that, and oh, Architect above, did it work, snapping up a brilliant and brilliantly strong golden thread. Addam made an impressed face.

"Yes, it's definitely stronger than we've ever had before. What about you, is it everything you expected?" The last bit was teased, but still serious and feeling. It didn't really matter though: Minoth hadn't expected this.

"Oh, Addam..." he moaned, rolling over and burying his face in his prince's shoulder, though not turning far enough so as to obscure the link's path.

"What is it, Minoth?" Again, Addam was generally content, but there was an undercurrent of worry in his voice.

"So much..."

"Is it too much?" the frowning words came. Gods above, no.

"...love you so much." Ah, there it was.

Minoth writhed under the piercing spread of the affinity. "It's alright, darling. I'm here." Addam's voice was like honey shot through with warm electric sunshine, and Minoth drank it in hungrily. He couldn't usually appreciate the actual taste of honey, preferring to observe the mesmerizing natural process of its creation, but the sweetness here was a heavenly balm.

Reaching out for Addam's left hand, he held it to his Core Crystal, shuddering and easing into the touch. When he looked up at last, it was with damp eyes. Luckily, the love in Addam's expression was enough to drown away his embarrassment, at least on the surface level.

"I must say, I never expected to see you crying, especially not when I'm sitting here fair as a daisy."

Minoth croaked a laugh. "No? It's always you taking care of me when we're alone together. Funny how that is."

Addam quirked an eyebrow in silent amusement. "Are you threatening to make me cry?"

Minoth shrugged weakly. "Maybe it's a threat, maybe it's a challenge."

Before he could so much as finish his quip, the prince was bending over to where his hand lay, moving it aside to pepper gentle kisses over the pristine crystal. That is, he only got halfway to doing so before Minoth stopped him with a confession.

"I wanted to hug you back, there in the tree. ...wanted, needed? I don't know. I couldn't tell you what was really going on in my head. When Xander hugged me, down on Mor Ardain, that was me, really me, slipping through the cracks."

Addam's mouth slipped open softly at the admission, and Minoth traced an achingly gentle finger around the inside corner of his lips.

"But when you hit me...I didn't slip at all. Bone-and-Core deep, it must have been. For me to need you that much. And for me not to have you? Oh, Addam..."

Addam didn't rejoin, only continued his path down towards the crystal with renewed purpose. He hadn't even considered the possibility of inner turmoil, preoccupied as he had been with his own consternation and despair. He'd have to make up for that now, or try to, anyway.

"Ngh-- No, Addam, let me. Please." Sincerity shone in the Blade's eyes as he shifted up to take his Driver's face in his hands. Where to first? Oh, there were so many choices.

Minoth tried the edge of Addam's jaw first, and that was a pleasant mix of tender and desperate and seductive. Around to the warm back corners, over the Adam's apple (heh), down to the dip between his collarbones - not that you could see the collarbones, overshadowed so as not to even appear in relief as they were by the chest beneath. He could feel Addam's hands drifting through his hair, sending prickles of affection down his scalp.

"Smile for me, would you, my prince?" His prince did, maybe already had been, wide and easy, and Minoth kissed up to the corners of his mouth, teasing around until finally he struck the center and pressed his lips more forcefully against Addam's. The hands in his hair gripped tighter, and Minoth laughed into Addam's mouth.

"I really do love you, Addam."

"Oh, and I you," Addam sighed, nearly purred as he fell on top of his Blade. Minoth thought they were about to finally fall asleep when a sudden pulse of affinity sent a spasm arcing through his spine. It was pure, unadulterated love and affection and Minoth couldn't help but whimper at the impact of it.

A chuckle echoed in his ear. "What?" "That's adorable."

He decided to return the favor by leaning up and whispering in Addam's ear, "No you," then following it up with a kiss over the central canal. Addam jerked and curled against him. Oh, Minoth was in it now. The affinity was orgasmic, but this? This was addicting.

Over and over he kissed at the delicate folds of skin, giving Addam a gentle popping sensation each time and trying to test the limits of just how hard he could make the prince gasp. He slipped in words too, breathing "Addam" and "my prince" and "my love" and "I'm yours" in between careful nips. The effect was almost overwhelming, and this time when he came up for air they were both teary.

"Minoth..." Addam started. "All ears," Minoth replied, reaching absently for Addam's hand and holding it tenderly, rubbing a thumb over the back.

"There's no need for you to surrender yourself like that."

"What, you mean because of the Driver and Blade stuff? Nah, I didn't mean it like that. Not that it isn't true," he finished with a roguish smile.

"Well, but then I still-" "Addam." The protest stopped.

"I've known you for sixteen years. Not to overdramatize my story, but you were the one constant thing for me that whole time. You big, beautiful clown of a prince. And you cared for me without fail. I don't have anything to give in return but myself."

Minoth turned worried eyes up at Addam, and suddenly the prince felt in very foreign territory. "I thought you were going to let me. After all this time."

The longer he looked, the more his jaw worked, and just when Addam was about to speak up, in one swift motion Minoth got off the bed, swept up his things, and moved towards the door.

A pathetic "Minoth, I--" came near the threshold, and he resisted the urge to turn around, looking halfway over his shoulder instead.

"Don't let this have been a mistake, Addam. Don't make me resent you."

Addam collapsed weakly across the bed, and some uncounted number of minutes later when Flora appeared unawares, he could only give her a haunted look. "What have I done, Flora?" he croaked.

Needing to find something to occupy herself, she unwrapped the red cord that bound up the small ponytail on the right side of his face and combed it through, unmatting where the tear tracks had pooled. "I don't know, my love." Addam stiffened at the term, but she pretended not to notice.

"I want you both to be happy, but if that doesn't turn out the way you had hoped, you still have me. For most men, that would be enough."

Flora finished her ministrations and retied the ponytail. Her words weren't vindictive, merely matter-of-fact, maybe even a litle endeared.

"I made him believe it would be easy, or if not easy at least natural. Simple. All he wants is to love you, if he can do that without hurting me, or Xander, or Mythra."

Addam was stubbornly hugging a pillow. "We've all accepted him. You need to make him feel safe, Addam, otherwise he'll only run away."

"And who am I to stop him?" he mumbled into the pillow. She didn't dignify that with a response. "Or, well...he's never run away yet, and he's had plenty of chances."

"Yet," Flora clipped primly. "And before you say that he can't, now, you know that he's the biggest contrarian out of all of us. I'm sure he said something about resenting you at the end of whatever fight it is you had."

Addam sighed and sank somehow deeper into the bedspread. "How do you always know everything, Flora?"

Smiling gently, she put a demure finger to her chin and pretended to think. "I don't know everything, darling, I just know you." Well...he doubted that, but it was at least half true enough.

Noises from the next room alerted them to Xander's arrival, Malos and Mythra in tow. Flora yanked the pillow out of Addam's grasp and smacked it over his face, saving him the embarrassment since he seemed too languid to do it himself.

"Mum, what's for dinner?" She laughed gently, almost wanting to chide her son for such a blunt opening statement. "I'm not really sure. I was going to make those long-postponed dumplings, but that doesn't seem like the best choice now."

Her gaze had drifted to her husband, still lying in an inelegant heap.

"Not even a week in and they're already fighting?" Malos teased. Addam groaned, and the Dark Aegis flinched; apparently he'd thought the man to whom he was referring had been asleep.

"Come on, let's see what we should make instead. Do you all mind helping? Many hands make light work, as Addam would love to say." He groaned again, this time in feeble agreement.

Mythra shook her head. "I'll pass on this one, if that's okay."

"What, afraid I'll outdo you?" Malos snickered.

She smiled evenly. "Nah. You'll probably be too distracted by Jin to get anything done - you might burn about as many dishes as I usually do." They took a moment to sneer at each other in sibling rivalry before Flora led the two boys out to the kitchen, leaving Mythra in the bedroom with Addam.

She sighed. "What kind of dumbass move did you make this time, Addam?"

He finally sloughed the pillow off of his face and focused red eyes on her. "Do you trust me, Mythra?"

She nodded slowly. "At this point...yeah."

"You don't mind that I acted parental towards you?"

Mythra gave a wan smile as she settled delicately on the edge of the bed. "Not anymore. You're just...my dad."

"I'm not, Mythra," Addam said dejectedly. "That's just left over from my old predispositions, and you know that."

"Flora said you thought you were, basically. Years ago." Father above, that had been so long ago.

"Yes, years ago. We don't need that crutch now. I'm simply your Driver, and your friend. A familial...something, but we needn't name it."

"Sure, okay." That's a bit of a load off her back, isn't it. "Whatever it is, it's kinda nice. Really nice." Going up the tree had been a real eye-opener.

"And yet you don't need me. With our part in the war more or less over, it doesn't much matter how much we trust each other. You're an Aegis, and you've been in this world for almost a decade."

To Mythra's great chagrin, Addam sniffled then. "I am so proud of how far you've come, Mythra."

"You trying to butter me up so I'll talk to your boyfriend for you?"

He gave his biggest groan yet. "Would you?"

There was silence as she picked dirt off the heels of her boots. "I would. After all, you're men. You need me and Flora to stop you from destroying yourselves."

Addam laughed despite himself. "That's an interesting twist on Malos's old philosophy, isn't it?"

Mythra stood up. "Nah. For all intents and purposes, he's a man too."

She turned back toward him for the first time. "But don't think you can always rely on us to take care of your emotions for you. I'm just saying...I care about you guys, and you seem to need a little help."

Sitting up taller, Addam puffed out his chest. "I'll have you know I'm very in tune with my emotions!"

"Crying a lot isn't being in tune with your emotions, Addam, just like utterly destroying everything in front of you isn't being strong."

He slumped back down. "That you're right."

"So, you coming?"

The prince gave his first Blade a watery grin. "Maybe a little later."

Addam may not be The First Man, but he is very much still The Flawed Man.

Chapter 35: Supper's Ready (Lover's Leap and Aching Men's Feet) - "Hey babe, with your guardian eyes so blue... Hey my baby, don't you know our love is true?"

empty space
there's always some
for any among us
should be at least one
so i shall go
spelunking
for a place to be
i'm sure
somewhere
there's a place for me

It was an interesting triangulation: Addam moping alone, Minoth probably doing a similar sulk in the basement, and everyone else crammed happily into the kitchen, half making food and half snacking it away. Then Mythra, crossing in between.

She'd never actually been to Minoth's room, despite all Milton's teasing about making her sleep there. There was nothing remarkable about the door, but the threshold assaulted her with a faint perfumy scent. Mythra wrinkled her nose, trying to stop the increasingly pungent aroma from getting stuck in her sensory memory. Closing her eyes, she gave three measured raps with the backs of her knuckles.

No answer. She couldn't even hear a shuffling noise from within the chamber. Three more knocks, warning this time, and still nothing came in response.

"Minoth. It's Mythra. ...not Addam." The door swung open aimlessly, and there he was.

Minoth's hair was down in an uncharacteristically low ponytail, and he studied Mythra from his desk stool with arms crossed. She noticed the gleam of the handle on a pair of scissors that had been hastily shoved into the undercarriage of the desk. Jeez, and they said women were flighty. In the back of her mind, Mythra knew that the generalization of men as self-destructive and women as their betrothed caretakers was grossly incorrect, but for their family, well, it had gradually become that way.

"You okay?" she started, and it sounded less lame than she had expected. "Why wouldn't I be?" he sneered back, performing pride.

"Because the one person you love most in the world kinda fucked up big time, and you're not far behind in not knowing what to do about it?"

"And how do you know that last is true?" Mythra rolled her eyes. This one was still a little insufferable, sometimes.

"Because you were about to cut off that precious rat tail of yours."

Finally, the bravado shrank away. "Nothing gets by you, does it, Mythra?"

She smiled, pulling up a second stool. "I'd say it's the power of the Aegis, but I can't have you telling Malos I said that."

Minoth chuckled. "You're both rare ones."

"We get along pretty well, all things considered, don't we, Minoth?"

"All things considered? What do you mean?" Mythra shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she tried to figure the right way to phrase it.

"When you still...worked with Amalthus, didn't you feel that you had to protect him?"

Minoth nodded evenly. "I did. To be sure, I even respected him then. But wanting to protect my Driver...that was one of the last things to fade."

"So when you showed up, twirling your guns and reeking of 'old fuckbuddy', and in obvious need of a Driver, you can probably understand that I was more than a little apprehensive. Especially given how self-centered I used to be."

Her conversation partner blinked. "We've...never had sex." Oh. Mythra made an appraising face to cover her confusion and embarrassment.

"Color me surprised. I guess I made my own TMI there." There was a pause. "But, like, you wanted to, right?"

Minoth exploded, a little bit. "The man was twenty-four years old, Mythra. I met him when he was sixteen! Come on, keep a little respect on my name!"

Despite the awkward subject matter, Addam's Blades found themselves grinning at each other in the darkness.

"See? You're not a perv, and he's not just an offhand acquaintance. You two've been so careful around each other that you don't know how to really get at the nitty-gritty. Keep the ponytail, Minoth, just...let it down a little."

Considering Mythra's advice, Minoth smirked and let down his hair with an exaggerated flourish that was entirely unnecessary for the erstwhile low style. Just from a single shake, there was suddenly about twice as much volume, most of it appearing in amusing uneven lumps.

He gave her his most womanizing expression. "How do I look?"

Taking Minoth up on his vulnerability, Mythra raked a hand from front to back, giving his head a final shove as she stood up. "Like Addam Origo's wet dream. Come on, let's see what's for dinner!"

Even after their very brief heart-to-heart, Mythra was still freshly shocked at just how much taller than her Minoth was as they walked. If she turned her head up, she could see the entire underside of his jaw, with room to spare. He was definitely handsome, in a dark, strong way that contrasted with Addam's evergold boyishness. No, not contrasted, complemented. He fit with Addam in the way she never really had.

She wondered, did her Foresight have the power to show things like this? To know that a sixteen-year-old Addam Origo would be the one to dredge up a hurtling-toward-decrepit Flesh Eater from Indol and bring him into the fold? Who decided stuff like that? A faint, austere voice in the back of her head said "That's not for you to worry about." So, she listened.

By the time they emerged on the first floor, the kitchen crew of Flora, Xander, Malos, Jin, Lora, and Haze had indeed made quick work of rustling up dinner. "Oh, Mythra, right on time," Flora called out, catching them and thrusting a bowl of Wildflower Salad into the Light Aegis's arms. She smiled bracingly at Minoth and ushered them into the dining room.

Addam was already there and seated, fidgeting nervously and practically jumping when Mythra elbowed the back of his head. He seemed to be steadily avoiding looking at the Dark Blade who trailed behind her, which worked out just fine for Minoth. He dropped a kiss on the prince's right cheek, in that coveted spot beneath the miniature ponytail, and kept on walking, taking a seat neither close to nor far from Addam. The whole room seemed to breathe then, and soon they were all engaged in quiet, contented chatter.

And, soon enough after that, the same six plus Mythra had retreated to the den for some low-brainpower board games. The dishes had practically done themselves, though hampered by a bit of a soap bubble fight between Haze and Xander that Lora had been very tempted to join.

Once alone, Addam and Minoth wordlessly shuffled back to the bedroom, sitting like lost children on opposite front corners. Then, Minoth heaved into his exposition.

"I always thought I was a charity case for you. That's why I never agreed to run away. It didn't sit right with me. Staying here in your house sort of bridged the gap...but only sort of. Then Mythra comes along and tries to knock our heads together, and it works, but I find out you're not willing to take me now that I'm ready. What am I missing, Addam?"

There was a pleading in Minoth's eyes that Addam had never seen before, and it made his heart feel pitifully small. He gulped and rasped and tried to find purchase on a word, but it seemed that his Blade had taken them all. Eventually something weak came.

"What are we meant to be, Minoth?"

Minoth cracked and rolled his neck in such a way that it almost lolled morbidly at a half-angle. "I guess I should know you can't really be mine. That's why I didn't say 'all yours' earlier today. I didn't want you to feel bad that you couldn't say it back."

His mind flashed back to Mythra's quip from earlier. "Like Addam Origo's wet dream." She'd made it sound just as crude and perverse as he felt, never mind her textual assertion to the contrary.

When Addam looked into the deep-set blue eyes once more, the pleading had turned to mourning. He gently bumped his Blade's arm in terrified encouragement.

"I'm in love with you, Addam. Because of that, I couldn't ever resent you, but it's also the only reason why I would."

The words were somehow even more damning than Addam had expected. "It takes two to be in love," he found himself answering, and then staring horrified at the space in front of his own mouth.

"So Mythra was wrong?" Minoth spoke coldly, but he made no motion to leave.

"Flora..." That was the crux of it all. The Blade raised a heavy eyebrow.

"Flora had very sage advice about this," Addam said, and coughed a dry laugh. "She always does. She said I need to make you feel safe, because she and Xander and Mythra are already doing their part."

Minoth laughed bitterly himself. "Mythra thought we were 'fuck buddies'. That's why it took her so long to come around."

Addam didn't seem surprised by the notion, only nodding, glassy-eyed. "You never would have allowed it. You've always been so careful with me."

"And that was Mythra's pearl of wisdom, too. I guess she would know, seeing as that's always what she got from you."

Addam tapped his fingers nervously on the edge of the bed. "Is that it, then?"

Minoth didn't bother asking what. He grasped the moving fingers as well as those of the far hand and pulled their owner to face him.

"Addam, I can't force you to do anything. I can't change the way you think, I can't banish your fears. I can't take back all the years of your half-baked bond with Mythra. The only thing I can do is offer you the chance to take me, not as I am but as I've chosen to be. Accept not just me but the reflections I make on you, the way I need you and the way I want so badly to believe you need me."

His voice quieted to a whisper. "I feel so safe with you. Please, please, please, Addam. I want to be all yours. Please steal me away."

As he spoke, making frantic, almost frenzied, eye contact, Minoth's head drifted forward to rest against Addam's. When his confession was complete, his eyes finally dropped, and he found himself gasping tears against the prince's eyes.

Addam felt the situation infinitely brittle in his hands. He tried a joke. "I want to hug you, but that would mean I'd have to stop holding your hands. Is that being in love, do you think? Not wanting to let go even for a moment once you've gotten hold of them?"

Minoth shook his head, his hair shifting around his jaw in such a lovely way that Addam thought his most recently presented notion, though perhaps misguided, couldn't possibly have been wrong.

"Being in love means being able to be unselfish, if it's for the one you love." And how would he even know that? No matter. He pulled his forehead away from where it had come magnet-stuck. "I'll keep doing that for you, Addam, if I have to. I've got plenty of good years left, now."

A reluctant smile twisted his lips. "I doubt any harm will ever come to an Origo again, with the entourage you three have got." Just then, Minoth's monologue was interrupted by a trio of gentle calloused fingers laid over his mouth.

"And for you, Minoth? What do you want?"

He didn't even have to think. "I don't care if I'm a Blade or not, or even if you're not my Driver. I want to give you everything."

But that wasn't really for him, now was it? It was a cop-out answer, a perversion of self-preservation by way of immersive oblivion. It wasn't the truth, and if they were ever going to unravel all these godforsaken aching layers then it had to be the truth.

Minoth whispered once more: "I want you forever."

What a beautiful, terrible, powerful, awesome truth. Thank the Architect, Addam smiled, gentle and slow but wide as ever.

"Then that's what I want too. And not just as some loyal servant of the Origo family, or some such, but for myself."

"You promise?" "I promise."

In the context of even just all that had happened that evening, it wasn't much, but Minoth allowed a little of the color to drift back into his voice.

"You can hug me now, my prince. Blade's honor, my poor hands'll be okay." Addam laughed and pulled him tight. "That's not a thing and you know it!"

"It's called a neologism, Addam. Have some culture, will you? You can hardly avoid it, with me around." And what else could he do, with the fascinating and fiercely loyal Blade around? Oh, everything, bar none, everything.

The hands clutching desperately at Minoth's back were the first indication that Addam was finally abandoning his feeble façade of put-together-ness. It was somewhat like that moment on the lower levels of the World Tree, only it was infinitely more gratifying and granting of a wonderful aura of safety and completeness. Yes, a flimsy gesture, but nevertheless the feeling was so much that Minoth felt his Core full to bursting. Something flickered, and he saw without seeing: their affinity - oh, their affinity!

"Addam, Addam, Addam..." he sighed into the other man's ear, and they were both crying once again. The desperate hands' goal was to pull them as close together as physically possible, but either they hadn't succeeded or they couldn't ever truly succeed, because it wasn't nearly close enough. Nothing could ever be close enough. From a clinical perspective, it probably wasn't a terrific idea for either party to be digging their chin so determinedly into the fleshy deltoid region just over the hump of the other's shoulder, yet who could possibly care?

"Minoth." Addam drew reluctantly back then, fluttering his hands between cheeks and shoulders before finally settling on shoulders for now.

"I may be a terrible Driver-" "No-" He cut his Blade off with an insistent shake of his head.

"Yes, Minoth, and you know it. But what I mean to say is that even though I've never been a very good Driver, the one thing I've always been good at, because it so quickly became so instinctual, is loving you."

Minoth cocked his head with what he hoped was a neutral expression decorating his face, because of course this couldn't be a bad thing.

"Didn't you know?" Addam continued. "Or were you just ignoring it because you were a little, shall we say, wary of the implications?"

Ah, well. Minoth grinned lazily. "You know me."

"I know you," Addam echoed back with what seemed like all the fondness in the world.

"Wait...how quickly?"

"Oh, well I'm not saying I saw you in the Praetorium library that first day and immediately thought 'Oh, he's so dreamy, I'd like to get his autograph and then kiss him, one of these days.'"

"No?" "...not consciously, anyway."

Minoth felt himself grin wider, so heady and so light, though his tone made to bely it. "So when consciously?"

Addam didn't look to be considering that for even a moment when he said, "Never mind that - what about now?"

The hands had moved back to flushed cheeks, where they felt surprisingly warm in addition to just being, admittedly, sweaty, and his mouth was hanging open and Addam was kissing him and he was in love, he was in love and it was Addam, never mind the Origo, his Driver, his prince, and oh, the kiss was over...

"My prince?" Minoth whispered, breathless and airy and hoarse and he almost wept the syllable as it passed high through his mouth.

"Yes, my love?" Addam answered him, voice just as husky, and the way he so obviously tasted the words, reverent as he spoke them, was such a sound to behold.

"Can we do that again?"

"Certainly. You don't have anywhere else to be, do you?"

"Nowhere else on earth, Addam."

And so they did, leaving lingering touches along the top edges of each other's foreheads, and eventually fell asleep with hands in hair and legs tangled. It was freer than they'd ever been with each other, but wasn't half a lifetime more than plenty to be filled with fear?

Well, not that all the trepidation was gone, because under heavy lids Minoth suddenly realized something. "Oh, uh, Addam, I never took a shower - did you?"

The prince, his prince, only clasped him tighter, heedless.

"Addam?" Minoth prompted again, more out of principle and annoyance than actual curiosity.

"Don't worry about it, Minoth," came the soft, nigh-slurred reply. "If it bothers you that much, we can just take one together."

Woah there. "Hold your horses, Prince. I don't know about that, just yet."

Addam smiled wry amusement into his ear. "Is it alright if I hold a cowboy instead?"

It was only the sheer contentment that came of being held that stopped Minoth's exasperation at the corny joke, but oh, how it stopped it, beyond any merest or mightiest shadow.

"More than alright. I'd even say that's perfect." And now, one more kiss wouldn't hurt, would it? Oh, not at all.

When Flora and Xander finally trotted in, the former to lie down herself and the latter to say goodnight, they had a bit of open-mouth shock themselves, but it soon dissolved into blissful grins. Xander wriggled in between the sleeping twosome, and Flora cuddled up to Addam's back.

Both Driver and Blade snaked a hand down to pull Xander in close, but their fingers soon intertwined with each other's instead. The boy just giggled and wrapped his own arms around Minoth's waist, determined not to let his beloved uncle get away from them ever again.

That's right, I'm giving them, as the ever-lovely DragonTamerM once said, a "full-fledged love story." (Please please please check out her work, particularly this epic, it's all amazing and puts me right to shame.)

Chapter 36: The Battle of Epping Forest - "And I'm breaking the legs of the bastard that got me framed!"

The smaller we are, the more certain we can be in our rejection. The larger we are, the more plausible we become. That's the spirit of hypothesis testing. Disagreements for equality can be positive or negative. That's right, nobody knows the truth. And failure? It's its own random variable.

The Origos awoke to a mighty wing beat outside their window. Or rather, everyone but Addam did. Minoth almost resisted the urge to run a careful hand through the prince's mussed-up hair, but then with a quiet joy remembered that he didn't have to. "Morning, darling," he whispered into Addam's ear, leaning close to the pillow to angle underneath his head.

Catching sight of Flora on his Driver's other side, he squeezed her hand in gratitude. She squeezed back. "Welcome home, Minoth." Oh, it was a cliché, to say that "home is wherever I'm with them," but wasn't it true? He'd like to think so, anyway.

Reluctantly letting go of Addam, he got up and walked to the window. When he twisted the blinds and threw open the sash, the sun blasted in far stronger than he had expected.

"You're only just up? It's already midday."

"We're as tired as you are, Azurda," Minoth replied easily. "Thanks for hauling tail on this."

The old Titan rumbled a laugh. "After carrying all of you on my back, I was eager to get a flight to myself."

"We should expect them by evening time, I gather." Azurda nodded with a slow arc of his great stony horn.

"Ahoy out there, Nuncle!" Addam cried, stepping to the window with Flora and Xander.

"Are you all worked out, then?"

"Yes. I hope so, at least," the prince answered, removing his hands from Xander's shoulders and looping one around Minoth's waist, the other gently resting on Flora's shoulder.

This was the most intimately Addam had ever casually touched him. Gone was Minoth's edge at the familiar hand. Gone were his barbed quips and his assai secco attitude. Gone even was the instinctual incredulous murmur of his prince's name. Well, it took a little doing, but he only stood proud.

Damn. He could get used to this.

The director in his head shouted about how stilted the scene was, with the perpetual cadence of fondness every five seconds, but the muse railed back: "Let it be affirmed! What is life without indulgence in joy?" So, narrative flow be damned, Minoth was going to eat breakfast (or lunch, he supposed) with his family.

They passed the day in amiable company. Addam had to check on the Armu herd after their time away, and Minoth didn't complain at being caught out for a ranch hand.

Some hours after their meal, whatever you wanted to call it, Mikhail arrived with Benkei and Yoshitsune. He was a little sullen, even still - Mythra guessed it was because he missed Milton, so she didn't tease him about it. After all, she missed him too. Even though you could make fast time from Lasaria if you didn't stop for chit-chat or monster encounters, Gormott was all too far away, especially during this period of the year.

Speaking of other Titan-continents, Mor Ardain's signature Titan flagship was fast approaching the harbor, the pilot maneuvering the craft with uncharacteristic precision and speed. Minoth frowned. There was something off about this. He cast a glance at Addam.

"Pretty big ship, isn't it, my prince?"

Said prince nodded. "That's what I was thinking. I had expected that Hugo would take a smaller craft, since he's no pretense other than a personal visit. Well," he finished, slapping an arm about Minoth's shoulders, "I never was one for the flotilla anyway! I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."

They rushed to the harbor to see what was up, Minoth slightly reticent in thinking of their last encounter with the Ardainian trio. Brighid was observing him appraisingly, and Aegaeon the same but slightly more at ease, so he took a deep breath and came forward boldly to grasp the Jewel's flaming hands.

"I am, as ever, your most humble servant, Lady Brighid."

To his immense surprise and relief, she smiled, her lips playing with a twitch. "Minoth?"

"At your service, Madam."

"You're a cad."

The Dark Blade laughed and threw a feigning hand to his forehead. "You wound me, my lady!"

Hugo and Addam looked on each other with likewise fond eyes as Aletta's residents ushered their guests inside. When they had all gathered in the den - even Malos, with appraising if slightly steely glances pointed towards him from all three Ardainians - Hugo finally revealed the reason for their slightly unorthodox mode of transportation towards the visit.

"My friends, I must impart grave news. Quaestor Amalthus has been meeting with my brother. I fear they seek to find a way to dethrone me...by way of my Blades."

Silence permeated the room, as they all sat back and considered this. On its face, it was unsettling, deeply perturbing, absolutely vile to think out the fruition of. But then...how? A gruesome, gruesomely stupid threat, to be sure. How could one, anyone, even Amalthus, do such a thing? Literally, how? Hugo continued his address then.

"There has been growing unrest among the Ardainian people over our tradition of only honoring as emperor those of the noble family who can successfully awaken our treasures, Brighid and Aegaeon. This lies in unfortunate concord with my brother's own wishes, and hearing as he has of the Quaestor's grisly experiments, whom only a hushed few have ever been party to knowledge of, he seeks to turn these unseemly phenomena in his favor."

Minoth grimaced, and Addam laid a hand on his leg to help steady him, at least somewhat. Of course. What else? Something that should not be done, effected by something that should not be done. Of course.

"If Domnhall can somehow draw my faithful Blades from my side, he may find some way to forcibly return them to their Core Crystals, and present before the public evidence that not only am I unfit to be emperor by those so disdained conventions, but that they do not even stand to be sensible protocols to follow in future. My line will be superseded by his - and it is not merely indignity that I suffer at the face of this dread truth, but indeed, true fear for the future of our nation under a more dark-hearted rule. I have the capacity to be ruthless and calculating, it is true, but I endeavor always to keep more than just a modicum of feeling for the common folk in the forefront of my sovereign mind."

"You've got to keep Brighid and Aegaeon close, then, haven't you?" Lora offered uncertainly. "I don't know what else we can do - I imagine you don't want to draw a lot of attention to whatever's going on."

Hugo nodded, shallow and a little gulping. "My fear for their lives and our bond paralyzes me, at times. A large flagship allows for a more robust and powerful guard, but at the same time there is only thus greater opportunity allowed for their demise to come about."

Something that looked devilishly like the fruition of such an opportunity entered the room on silent, flaming foot then.

"Are you always so careless as to leave that window ajar? The lord or lady of this house would be well served to practice greater caution toward that end."

Taking crucial note of the entrant's darkly gleaming katana held at side, Aegaeon drew his own weapon even more swiftly than usual. "Name yourself, villain. Who dares to enter the residence of Lord Addam Origo with such audacity?" Opposite the Water Blade, Brighid also readied her whips, though with flames tamed.

The demon was undiminished in its approach, heedless of either threat. "Fear not. I bear neither the Lord Addam nor the Lord Hugo or indeed, the Lady Lora, any such offense of ill will. My name is Perceval. I am a Blade of Mor Ardain - rather like, and then rather unlike, your noble selves."

Not so noble they looked then, with swords drawn inside a country home among practically the entire grouping of an extended circle of friends-turned-family, and so they were sheathed.

"Though my step is a flaming one, I am a Blade of the darkness - one such as yourself, Master Minoth," the foreign or perhaps not so foreign Blade continued its, his, introduction. His square-jawed mouth didn't move, didn't motor, as he spoke. "Absolution and pursuit for justice are all I know."

Minoth, looking very much like he was about to toss the newcomer right over the sill toward whence he had come, stepped up and forward in an automatically protective and edged-up stance. "Hold on a minute. Why are you calling me that? It's only a very select few people who get to call me that, and they're all standing on this side of the room."

"My apologies. I did not mean to offend. But your disguise...it was not infallible, of course. There are those who, like me, know of your separation from your original Driver, and your greater work thereafter. I yet remain under mine, and it is my hope that I may succeed in bringing him to a personal justice."

Minoth groaned. "That's pretty much the opposite of what I wanted to have happen. The reputation, I mean. Justice for him...you must have been listening to everything Hugo here said, so maybe you can tell how I feel about that by now."

"Perhaps I can," Perceval allowed. "Not that you are so transparent. Something I admire. You are rather unassuming, for the force you carry."

Him? Unassuming? Mythra rolled her eyes. "Gotta be some pretty tricky circles you travel in, to make him a pretty face," she said with no malice, jerking a thumb in the referenced cowboy's direction. But, he took no affront, only smiled at her in thanks for the supporting banter.

"Indeed," was all Perceval said in reply. "And what of you, O Aegis?" The other Aegis, of course; Mythra as a long-standing force of light and good was persona non grata for this discussion. She didn't mind it, inwardly or outwardly, just sat back and watched.

"What of me?" Malos echoed, then simultaneously relaxed and tensed up. "Oh come on, say 'what about me' like a normal person, would you?"

"Very well." Perceval was none daunted. "What about you?"

"You mean how I figure into this whole darkness spiel? I don't know. This guy walked into an experiment to get his cords cut. Meanwhile, I just scared our Driver shitless so much that he didn't know what to do with himself or me, so I left. Ain't too proud of what I did, but I left. At least I wasn't directly following his orders."

"Ah."

Jin, catching on to the point even from that stringently sparing choice of word, crossed his arms. To see someone else so calmly and rationally critical of Malos was a welcome sight; the occupants of this residence, while certainly painfully cognizant of his existential dilemma and origin, didn't ever quite seem to act so.

But, let the aforementioned brevity serve. Malos rolled his eyes with a mighty effort, if only one pretended, before leaning in, his most imposing stance. "'Ah'? Got anything more there, you demon dipshit?"

If it seemed at all possible for Perceval to smile, one might have suspected that he would have been, but then again, perhaps not. The very evenest of keels, he seemed to possess, when not focused on a target for judging, if somewhat heartlessly.

"It is again admirable," he said. "I wish to proceed as much of the same. Only...perhaps without the genocide. That? I need it not."

Malos scoffed. "You got that right. The whole architected world needs it not." An obvious conclusion, indeed, but still fortifying to hear him say it. Had he even...? No, not until now. Xander, though yet confounded by their unexpected guest, attempted a reassuring smile for his Blade, and after much facial machination on the part of the recipient was glad to find it accepted.

"I see," Perceval again continued. "Quite interesting to hear it from you."

Malos had been looking across the rest of the faces arrayed before him, and scored approval from most of them. Good enough authorization to say it, even feel it. "Hey, I got my head screwed on right now."

"Do you?" Shit. Malos made no further rejoinder.

"Thank you, Perceval," Hugo cleared his throat and began again, "for assessing the character and versimilitude of our hosts', ah, newest prodigy." Malos and Mythra shared a grin at that - not too shabby of a title, after all.

"I will not pretend in the least that that issue does not press, but indeed, my initial qualm looms greater. It appears that I would do well to appeal to and respect your judgement. Do you have a suggestion as to how to handle this threat upon my livelihood, to say nothing of Brighid and Aegaeon's lives?"

To say nothing of it, them. A harmless enough turn of phrase, but one that yet made his Blades wince. Human struggles put their lives on the line just as his, yes, but thereafter what was to stop them from also being reawakened, used and abused under Indol? Treasures to hold, treasures to lose, treasures to find again, but by other, colder hands. It was sickening.

Perceval crossed his arms, not quite apprehensive but certainly more slow to act, to speak, when put on the spot himself. "Your security certainly could use some reinforcement, as I was able to pass here to Torna without your slightest knowledge."

Aegaeon said nothing, but the pace of flow in his tubes quickened at this anxtifying reminder of a failure. As with everything, Perceval seemed to take due observatory notice, and he appended a well-needed guarantee: "However, you can trust absolutely in my promise that I was the only one to follow you. Here, in the manor of the Lord Addam, you are most safe."

"And that's as it should be, dear Hugo," Addam put in. "I would never want my home to be a place where you felt ill at ease."

Hugo nodded his gratitude. "Thank you, Addam. It seems we shall be staying a while once more then, eh?" And they were just about to make general agreeing and agreeable motions as to the assent of that fact when a hooded figure burst into the den, guided by Vez.

"Your Majesty! There's been report of an assassination. Or at least, there will be. It hasn't got out yet. Probably, it won't ever."

Hugo's fists were quite plainly clenched at his sides as he tried to quell his immediately presenting nerves. This was the exact kind of interruption that he didn't want to experience, but here it was, and, "Well, MacNeth, out with it-!"

"Right, yes. Praetor Rhadallis has been poisoned. Magister Baltrich was found dead too. Succeeding them...is none other than the new Praetor, Amalthus."

The pinched feeling in the room was none ameliorated; the realization gave no relief. "So it was all a ruse," Hugo hazarded, but not in a way or tone that made anyone else believe that he believed it. He was, yes, suddenly, outwardly, calmer, his shoulders hitched down and the cadence of his voice back to what could be considered normal, and yet...

"Your Majesty?" Aegaeon prompted.

"To get us away from Mor Ardain, and thus the eyes of our citizens off of Indol. With gossip of a change of power in our homeland out and about, as surely it was not only Perceval who heard of it, it would be more than just easy for the Quaestor - the Praetor," their young emperor's tone grounded, "to effect such a change as that, and bring off the completion of his own rise."

Brighid put a quietly blazing hand to her chin. "But Your Majesty, surely you don't believe that we're in the clear now."

"Maybe I do, Brighid, and maybe I don't. What I do believe is that the longer we remain here, the weaker our position becomes. Our nation cannot tremble. We cannot be anything but staunch against Amalthus's rise."

"So you're going, then?" Flora asked, no such tremble in her timbre as she rose to mete the exit.

"What, so quick to throw us out, Lady Origo?" Brighid teased, but she followed the motion, and they all moved back to the harbor with springs and snaps in their steps.

"Wait a minute, Lady Brighid!" Haze had piped up then, and she scurried ahead of and aside from the group into the master bedroom to check her theory. Indeed, window's shutters softly flapping, and no trace but a stray cinder to indicate who had most recently been through.

"None of us even noticed he'd gone..." Hugo remarked softly.

"Probably went on to higher-minded things," Malos drawled. "Good riddance."

"Hey, lighten up, will you?" Mythra smacked the back of his head as she passed.

Jogging after her then, he called, "What, you liked that guy?"

"Nah, but it was pretty cool to see him rake you over the coals. You deserve it, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I know..." But, he didn't make any retaliating attack. Needing it not, and all that.

When the last goodbyes had been said, and the three teams once again made to split, Hugo turned to Minoth for a final word. "I'm glad to see you back, Minoth. Addam didn't exactly mention to me what the ordeal was like, but..."

"But he knows I think it was well worth it!" Addam finished, not giving Minoth time to reply. The difference in heights between both of his old friends seemed to make no material object as he hugged them both, and Minoth cast aside any further worrying about the Architect's trial. There were realer things to ground themselves against, now.

The use of Akhos and Patroka's Japanese names is more of a coy reference than anything else, perhaps the seed of a discarded idea.

Perceval will not return, but he will be missed ever so dearly.

Chapter 37: Heathaze - "As they do all those things they feel give life some meaning, even if they're dull."

it's peace and it's comfort and it's come after so long
and if you spent a thought to wondering if you deserved it
well, by then, it'd probably be gone

Minoth passed Malos in the stairwell one morning several long months later. When first light crept up over the edge of the moor, the Dark Aegis always liked to squirrel away to the workshop and get a workout in, so this was no big occasion.

"Morning, birthday boy," Minoth could hear muttered his way. "Same to you," he called back, unaware of the meaning or even the identities of most of the words that had just been exchanged.

When he entered the kitchen, Mythra was fussing around with a bowlful of crepe batter; it was one of her ways of crossing the boundary between baking science and culinary savors. Without looking up, she gave a distracted "Happy birthday, Minoth."

The addressed Blade stopped his crusade to the icebox to squint at Mythra. "Birthday? What birthday? Come to think of it, that's the second time I've heard that today. What are you and Malos up to?"

She finally straightened up, propping the hand holding the spatula on her hip. "Come on, I know you don't keep a journal, but no way does a brainiac like you not keep track of what day it is. You were awakened by Addam one year ago today."

A blank look was all that came back Mythra's way. "It's a big milestone! You should be glad we have the free time to celebrate it. I didn't..." Not that she had really wanted to, at the time.

As Minoth processed this, a too-peppy-for-this-early-in-the-day Xander trotted in with a perpetually groggy Flora. "Whatcha making, Mythra? Ooh, crepes? You gotta put rainbow sprinkles on mine!"

Mythra smirked and gestured to the brilliant, if gaudy, jar of the candy toppings tucked behind the mixing bowl. "You got it."

The last entrant to their morning gathering was an only barely presentable Addam, shrugging on a robe as he came through the door. He was obviously making a beeline for the carafe of hot water and a pouch of coffee grounds, but he stopped periodically on his way to kiss Flora's cheek, the top of Xander's head, Mythra's forehead, and the tip of Minoth's nose, with a "Morning, dear" to the first and general contented humming noises to the rest.

"Are you a bird, Addam?"

The prince laughed as he reached into the cabinet to grab a mug. "Not since I last checked, no. You're just too damn tall!"

Minoth gave a faint hint of a smirk. "My mouth's closer, you know."

"Oh? I hadn't noticed," Addam answered him, definitely noticing.

Mythra shook her head as she checked the edge of the underside of a crepe. "Only birthday privileges are stopping me from rolling my eyes big-time at that, you two."

There was that phrase again! Minoth leaned forward to rest his elbows on the counter and look sideways up at Addam. "The Wonder Twins are making a pretty big deal of my awakening anniversary. That mean anything to you?"

Addam took a first sip of his coffee, scowled at the feeling of burning his tongue that he'd felt every day for the past year - patience would serve him better on two counts, then, but Minoth suspected that he didn't even enjoy the beverage all that much to care about letting it steep more - and mirrored his Blade's posture ninety degrees adjusted on the next plane over of the formica.

"I'm sure it means quite a lot. Lora's told me that she wished she could celebrate with Jin and Haze, but they never had quite the time, space, or funds to do so properly. I don't really know what we'd do, but it's certainly a day to be remembered!"

"To be remembered...tch. I don't even really remember it all that well in the first place." Every other head in the room swiveled to peer at him in disbelief. "What?"

"You don't remember?" Mythra asked incredulously, stressing each word and even each syllable with a bob of her chin.

"Should I? I thought the common understanding was that I wasn't quite in my own head at the moment."

Flora piped in then. "Not when you emerged from the crystal, Minoth, when you came back into your own at the World Tree. That other version of yourself...we can't really ever think of that as you."

Tilting his head back in understanding, Minoth studied the stone of the ceiling with absent interest, then rolled and cracked his neck before lowering his gaze back to the people, the family, around him and training it on Addam.

"Isn't that important, though? My life's been tied to yours ever since then." His Driver looked like he rather needed an actual stimulant that wouldn't burn his tongue off before he could get any down, because suddenly this pleasant morning discussion had him in way over his head. His eyes swam distractedly, a little bit.

"That's probably the part about being a Driver that I like least. A little bit like my fear of ruling, in fact. When you go beyond the bounds of just taking responsibility for someone else's life, when you more control it than anything else."

"Addam." Minoth convinced himself to slide a hand over his Driver's, even with everyone else watching. "You're not Amalthus. You will never be Amalthus. And any time you take a risk, you know I'll be right there with you - you really think it'll be so bad if we have to die together?"

"In each other's arms, I'm sure," Xander chirped, and Minoth's eyebrows near about flew off his face as he turned a jerking head to look at his nephew's unbelievably smug little face.

"Who taught you to sass us like that?" he demanded, half-serious, but Xander was undeterred. "Mum did. You guys are so goofy together, it almost makes me wanna-" "Gag?" Mythra put in.

Xander stuck his tongue out at her, but he was smiling around the rude face. "It makes me want a hug for myself!" he finished, rushing his uncle head-on and tackling his legs (the equivocation of heights was just as much because the kid was still short and scrawny, yet, as it was because Minoth was, as Addam so affectionately put it, "just too damn tall").

Minoth was cagey as he made to pick Xander up. "Why do I feel like I'm about to be rushed down by the rest of you as well?"

"Because you are," Flora answered, laughing despite herself, and then he was, and they'd forgotten the admittedly pretty serious conversation they'd just been having, but maybe that was okay - they had nothing but time, after all.

"You ever been to Coeia, Jin?"

Malos, ever the expert conversationalist (not), broke the relative silence of his and Jin's careful culling of a Upa infestation with a seemingly offhand question. Jin, it appeared at first, answered in kind.

"No, I haven't. You destroyed it just before the time when Lora and I might have considered going. It was a potential next place to search for her mother."

"Ah...did you ever find her?"

"Yes, shortly after joining up with Addam and Mythra."

There was a joint exhalation as they cornered and quelled another aquatic surge. "That's good, then."

Jin shook his head, a little victorious in his pocketed verbal coup. "All we found was her grave."

It had been the last one, in fact. "Oh...but you found her, at least."

The Ice Blade's gaze was steadfast as ever. "It's no excuse, Malos. Just because you weren't actually the one to kill Lora's mother doesn't mean you didn't end hundreds, thousands of other lives in your rampage."

They stewed in the aftermath of that phrase all the way back to the house, then took careful seats on the porch.

Malos opened again. "Have you ever killed anyone, Jin?"

"I...no, I never have. Have I ever even gotten close...? When I was first awakened, I cut off Lora's father's arm. When he chased us down in Torigoth, I cut off the other, but for Lora's sake I spared his life."

"Lora, Lora, Lora," Malos repeated, leaning back and crossing his arms. "It's just like Mythra told me."

"What did she tell you?" Perhaps kindly conversational, perhaps sharply inquisitive. Perhaps both. Just as their fair Jin should be.

"That you guys are dysfunctional as hell. I mean, not like I'm one to talk. Still, I don't even need to bother asking about the technicality of what your other lives, all your past Jins, did, because you're barely even concerned with your current one."

"What do you mean?" Tone now frigid, but more in the spirit of being taken aback than being guarded. Accepting of reason, of another opinion, and from Malos of all people. Huh.

"Look, Jin, I'm not saying you should be like me. Not by a long shot. But think about it. My Driver now's a shrimpy little kid, and we don't bother each other or bother with each other. More or less, he's just the person who brought me into the world again. Kinda like Amalthus, only not half as shitty. Meanwhile, you're over here afraid to make a step in case it won't please her. She's almost forty fucking years old, Jin."

Jin flinched at the curse, but stared seriously on. Malos caught his gaze, steeped himself in it. "Isn't there anything that you want?"

"Me? I want...to protect Lora. It's all I've ever wanted." Literally. Just the way a Blade should have it. Literally.

"And can't you want anything else? I find myself struggling to figure out what it is that I want, but I know there has to be something. I don't think I could walk on my own two feet if there wasn't."

"But a purpose like the one you had...?" Like the one you were given, thrust, but the one that you accepted without hesitation, the one you didn't question for a second as to its illogicity, the one you wholesale embraced. The one that cast embraces themselves into a pitiful little dust pile. Literally.

"Hey, I think we've pretty well determined by now that that wasn't my fault. Not all of it. And, well...if your life had gone a little differently, you might have ended up murdering scores without discretion too."

Indeed, if it had gone a little differently. And it still could. "I'd like to be able to change what has to happen to us. To me, I suppose. Someday. Is that something you'd be interested in helping with?"

"Any plan you have sounds pretty good to me, Jin."

"But you'll check me on it, won't you?"

"Hey, anytime. I'm your man." He corrected himself, hasty in the pursuit of resituation: "I'll be your man."

Jin snorted. "You're not a man, Malos." And, Malos didn't snort back.

"I mean I'll be there for you. Not that...not that Lora doesn't do that for you. But I'd like the chance. Too."

Fighting meant he'd had his mask on. Habit, old habit, yet clung to for a multitude of reasons. He removed it now, and looked Malos fully in the eye. Intense eyes, both of them. "'I'd like the chance.' I like those words."

"Ugh," Malos started with a hand scrubbed across his forehead, "Minoth's rubbing off on me. Can't get away from that nuthouse."

Smiling, Jin breathed out amusement with lids rested. "It seems to me like they've been good for you. I won't complain."

Tentative arm slapped preternaturally armored shoulder. "Right, right. Of course you won't. But hey, get a little ire in you sometimes, huh?"

"Of course, Malos. Now get your arm off my back."

Malos did as requested, but in their further talks, weeks and months and years following, it managed to find its way back without retribution.

I'll be your man. I'd like the chance. So be it, and so have it. There's something to be said for mutualism.

"You know, Addam, I'm quite glad I married you."

"Oh?" Addam looked up, interest devilishly peaked, with a mischievous smile playing at his lips. "And just why might that be?"

Flora was none so distracted. "Because my name sounded damned stupid before."

Quite a right-angle turn on the opened conversation, and he expressed as much shock. "What? I think it was lovely - and still is, of course."

"Flora Evelyn Hentisane," she pronounced with a shove of disdain. "It's so...namby-pamby."

"Is that so?" He laid down the object of his current occupation and leaned back in his chair at the kitchen counter. "You must forget mine, then."

Flora mirrored his lean, hers against the counter itself as she was standing. "Oh, no, I don't. Addam Leigh Origo, my beloved prince. I could never forget."

"Hey, don't tease! I have to bear it with pride, after all." Not that he really did, because he didn't sign it or any initialed indication on any official documentation, and as he was known almost ubiquitously by the duonym or some titular equivalent, no one quite cared what came in the middle.

In that middle, that is. In others, even if Flora notwithstanding, not so much. Xander was rattled as he broached the subject towards his own individuality. "Wait a minute...Mum, what's my middle name?"

Flora cocked her head, tilted her chin, rubbed her bottom lip with a considering finger. "Yours? It's...oh, hmm, that's odd."

"What?" "I can't seem to remember it."

"Mum! I can't believe you. You remember everything except things like this. Come on, where's the...some album, or something," Xander said, turning away and starting for the study, "it's gotta be in there."

His mother sounded almost nervous as she called after him. "Oh, you think so?" Something in the undercurrent there cued him, and he rotated back around.

"I mean, doesn't it? You must have written it down somewhere. A birth certificate! Where's my birth certificate?"

"Ah, no, uh..." Addam started lamely, "I think we rather forgot. As in, you don't have one." (I'll clarify for them: the appropriate and requisite documentation, he had. It might, however, be considered somewhat incomplete.)

A beat, followed by another, then another. Then: "You forgot? Your own son's middle name?!"

Now Xander, my boy, they'd already forgotten it nigh wholesale half a minute ago, and you went right along with it, but still...yes, indeed. Forgot? This?

Addam and Flora shared a nervous glance. "Well, yes, and you don't technically have godparents either, but that isn't so important, is it?"

Xander shook his head disbelievingly. "No, it's not, and I get that part. But the name...Architect, why is Uncle Minoth the only one with any brains around here?"

"I don't know," Addam replied, injecting more gravity than the situation deserved. "Let's ask him, shall we? Minoth!"

Powerfully prescient ponytailed head stuck its obliging way in through the threshold. "What's up, Prince?"

"Xander wants to know why it is that you're the only one with any brains around here." The rest of the cowboy followed now as Minoth ambled over to Xander to clap an avuncular hand on his shoulder.

"Xander, Xander, you don't give yourself enough credit! But still..." Spinning around with practiced flair, he pointed an expert finger at Flora. "Your mother's got all the brains, and I just steal them from time to time, whenever I can."

To accompany this sentiment, Minoth shrugged theatrically. "It hasn't bitten me in the behind yet. Any further questions?"

Xander pursed his lips and shifted them back and forth for a few seconds. "No, I guess not. I mean, it's just a little weird that I don't have a middle name. You know, would have been cool, and all..."

Minoth smirked fondly. "Shall we give you one now, then? After all, I did it once, I can do it again. What sounds good - Trevor, maybe? How about Paul? Does Simon strike your fancy?"

"Uncle Minoth..." Xander reached up, less far now that he was thirteen and starting to get perhaps a little less shrimpy, and laid his own hands on his uncle's shoulders - family privileges, of course, that he was even being allowed to do so. "Those all sound horrible and you know it."

Addam watched his Blade with similarly fond eyes as the scene played out. "Minoth, have I ever told you how handsome you are?"

Oh, on to this, are we? Very well. "Quite a few times, I'm sure. But, I'm not worried about it. That's your problem."

"Problem? I disagree. I'm quite happy to know it."

Sighing, Minoth took a seat himself, at last. "And will you still be, another forty years from now?"

"Why, of course," Addam answered the not-quite-rhetorical question. "Not to be shallow, but I don't think I'd be too keen to spend the rest of my waking days with someone ugly."

"You forget, don't you, Addam." "What's that?"

Minoth flourished a spill of fingers at his Core, pure for years now. "I'm ageless. I always was, but now it's for sure."

"Well, but then...it's just as we said, isn't it? We'll die together, and that'll be alright. Would it be altogether too selfish to use the privilege we have as being part of the royal family to bury your Core Crystal with me?"

"Morbid of you, Addam." Well, morose, he seemed, perhaps, but not quite agreeing to the mortal thing.

"Me? You started it, darling. Come on, let me give you a kiss and let's forget about it."

"Sure, sure, until the next time you start getting all doe-eyed about the bridge of my nose, or some other nonsense."

"I'll start now, if you're not careful. It's a very noble nose, you know. Mine's all birdlike and pointy."

Full stop here, before we spiral. "Flora, how hard are you going to slap me if I say a bad word?"

She considered this for a moment. "Depends on the context." Soldier ahead, then.

"Addam, you get on my fucking nerves." The addressed again looked back and on with eyes bright and brimming.

"But you're in love with me?"

"But I'm in love with you."

Indeed, she slapped both of them, then kissed Addam's cheek to make it better, and if you're feeling whimsical maybe Xander even took his uncle out for another classic moorish jaunt to talk of names and lives and loves and all sorts of other things found there...in the middle.

After it all, the Origo names are terribly white for supposedly Mongolian people, but in the secret, even fluffier (if you can believe it) universe where there are in fact twins, it's Alexander (Alex/Xander) and Evelyn (Evie/Lynn), if not simply Hugo and Lora, so...sorry Flora, you're going to have to deal with it. Whether or not she has a different middle name in that universe remains to be seen.

Everybody go read And if there's a reason by Sylvalum right now. Right now. Don't even come back to this story ever. Just go read that.

Chapter 38: Duke's Travels - "I am the one who guided you this far! All you know, and all you feel...!"

There comes that mysterious meeting in life
When someone acknowledges who we are
And what we can be
Igniting the circuits of our highest potential.

-- Rusty Berkus, "Soul Mates"

It was shortly after Xander's sixteenth birthday, because everything seemed to come in eights with this family, that a summons came from the palace - not for Addam alone, or Addam and Flora, or Addam with a Blade...but for Addam and Minoth specifically. Appraising faces were made, worn smiles were given, routine transportation was taken.

Khanoro didn't give or make much idle, trivial preamble, only nodded with a peculiar expression decorating his stony features. He was glad to see Flora with them, but then they had expected that much. When he observed Minoth, he seemed victorious, corrected, vindicated. He liked to see his conclusions met, after all. Zettar was, thankfully, absent.

"Noble Minoth...I remember well the part you played in defeating the terrible Malos those many years ago. It was your work as much as it was that of Lady Lora or Lady Mythra that caused our land to flourish once more, freed of his dread shadow. If I had only known how you had struggled against the influence of Praetor Amalthus, much as the Aegis had, I would have done this sooner."

Minoth shifted in his seat, uncomfortable not standing at the ready in a setting like this. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Your Majesty."

"Your records. Those that few Blades have. We have marked them well, owing great thanks to our beliefs in the equality and even veneration that Blades deserve just as humans do. It befuddles you, does it not, how you look so Tornan? How you bear more of a resemblance to me than you do to Addam, or even our celebrated treasure Jin?"

The shifting stopped. This was...huh. "I...yes. That has confused me for some time."

"Let it be no cause for despair. As we have seen with the kind Lady Haze, a Blade's first Driver, after their time spent in common likeness, imprints heavily upon them. You must have supposed this, yes?"

"The thought has crossed my mind," Minoth allowed.

"Your first Driver, then. A noble of our Torna from the time long past, before even the reign of the good Alektos, who sealed our Titan from its own fearsome might. He, much like Addam, had no great inclination for the throne, but abdicated that right of his own volition. Instead, he traveled our lands on splendid mount, taking the duty of a ruler to mean that he should consort with his people, learn of their stories, and spread goodwill."

Oh, this? "Sounds like somebody I know."

"Indeed. When I read of his history, I could only form my own impression; I was not there to know this humble Ikhnaton. But from what description I did read, he reminded me greatly of our Addam. Perhaps more austere, less jovial, but a champion of the people nonetheless."

"And his Blade?" Flora put in mischievously from where she sat on Addam's opposite side.

"And his Blade. Riding along with him, just as strong and just as proud. There are none of his writings here, but Ikhnaton sketched him in his journals." As he spoke the word, Khanoro presented just such an archive, laid open with due care, in front of his audience. "Does this not resemble your Minoth, Addam?"

The expression was complex, simultaneously grimmer and more wily, perhaps quieter full through, but each stroke around the jaw and over the nose, each strand of hair, was placed with achingly precise care. (No scar, of course, of course, but he was just as picturesque even without it.)

"It's you," Addam said quietly as he stroked a careful thumb over the just as carefully shaded browbone. "It was always you."

Khanoro smiled, head bowed. "It gladdens me, to see the souls reunited, finally in peace."

In peace. Amalthus the Praetor for eight years already but the world in peace, their relationship and bond in peace. Xander grown, Mythra and Malos settled, in peace in peace in peace and oh they'd never thought for a moment back those precious many years ago that there would be peace. And yet a thousand years ago...there had been.

"Did I ever...have any other Drivers?" It was a wincing concession, and Minoth saw Addam and even Flora, over his shoulder, flinch at the necessary, perhaps unnecessary, question. Because he had had at least one, of course. Thankfully a bygone, it was, but been it had been, it would always haunt, it was part of his history as much as this happy thing.

Khanoro's answer was a bleak neutrality: "It would be unknown to us. Ikhnaton's line was never continued. He had no descendents. It seems he found enough hearty companionship in the Minoth of their time that he didn't need to think of anything else. In such a time, such a happening would be one of bliss, something smiled upon by the Architect."

Addam's brow furrowed, the wrinkles of a forty-year-old face only deepened at the possibility of further, long-practiced imperfection. "Is it not now, Lord?"

Because his line had been continued, his travels and travails with Minoth were implicit and bordered on illicit; even if the Praetor did not care for his failed experiment, he certainly must have marked the transgression. Stolen property, indeed, if no one ever cared to preserve the physical demanifestation of a Tornan treasure lost in times when Blades' sacrosanctness was held above all across all Titans.

Addam a bastard prince, Minoth a bastard Blade. No one really cared, about the two of them or about what made them a pair. And yet perhaps Khanoro would not see it that way - he was, after all, the only one left who was duty-bound to care. Duty-bound, and he saw you as an obligation, Addam. Proud to bring you here before him, but always able to present the proper face even as gravity stirred and pulled underneath. Issue of the rumble, rumble of the issue...

"One can only hope that the Architect still smiles, if the people of Alrest will not. I myself do, as you can see. I do not begrudge you, Addam. My son...I could never begrudge you."

There wasn't time, however, to sit and scintillate in the thoughts that there was never anyone else, no other place he could have belonged, he was Tornan and Addam was his Driver, first and last, because the ground suddenly began to pitch beneath them.

They were up in an instant, catching sight of Azurda rising from the courtyard and moving to scout, but the king made no such motion. Once the old Titan returned to visibility with his gravest possible visage and a distinct air of urgency quite unlike him, Addam seemed to know in an instant toward what their monarch's immotiveness tended.

"My lord-- No, Father! This is no ordinary attack - you have to come with us!"

Khanoro's low shake of head was wistful. "No, Addam. If this is to be the end for our land, I will take it with dignity. After all, if Torna is no more, then we have no worry of Zettar succeeding me, hmm?"

Once again the understanding was quick, like they would never have suspected ran between the unlikely father and son. "You-- You picked an awfully peculiar time for jokes, Father," Addam said, shoulders sagging.

And Khanoro did not sag. "What can I say? I am old, for a ruler of Torna. It is time at last for me to retire."

He walked to the balcony to watch the destruction as if he'd planned it, foreseen it, known always in his heart that he would die with Torna. Of course, nothing could ever sway him.

What there was then barely time for was wandering where in the hell Mythra, Xander and Malos were when they touched back down at the manor. Soon enough, they emerged, Xander with his arms full of notebooks and his eyes full of tears and the Aegises close behind with actual provisions, cloaks and snacks and weapons and was this war, then?

As they arrived on Spessia via a makeshift evacuation ship made of beleaguered cargo hold, indeed, it was war, the assault there just as ripe and terrible as it had been to bomb away at the earthen stone, stony earth of their beloved Torna. Torna, the place where Jin and Haze and Azurda and yes, even Minoth, had been born, had perhaps always wanted to always die, breathe and beat their last.

Why was it gone? Why, Architect damn it, was it gone? Spared wincing glances over the damnably smooth-riding transport Titan didn't do half the appropriate respect and justice to that glorious place, that golden country of sun and sand and moor's dreamlike desert, desert's commonplace moor.

They didn't say it, but they all knew it. Amalthus's dread quest yet surged on. They had thought, like complacent fools, that he'd been content with his Praetorship, that leading doctrine and policy and public opinion would have been enough, but no, he seemed determined to rid the world entirely of the countering contraband that was Torna's beliefs, and then thereafter all remaining citizens who fled to the most obvious haven.

Setting up a refugee camp sheltered by a swell of cessen hill was simple enough, yes, straightforward and hardy work, but among the cries of death and loss it was so horribly hard to keep at the slog when it seemed that tomorrow it might even be swept away. When Malos had scoured and scourged the world, he had been taking away that which already existed, that which was already built and guardable.

Here, they didn't dare infiltrate the towns with their problems - if luck was on their side, maybe the extinction event was truly only after the Tornans, and not the humble business-minding Spessians. So to tacking and tying they went, wallowing in the futility and only being able to see some sort of semi-twisted relief at the sheer numbers they had to accommodate.

The skies were bleak, the air was thick, and in the distance they could see Indol, pristine as ever, a mere harmless speck on the horizon. As if. As fucking if. Indolence. Again, complacence. Fools hadn't even rushed, and here they were. They cast each other tired looks, Addam to Mythra to Flora to Malos to Xander to Minoth, and they kept on working. Soon enough, the invasion would have to be staved. Nip the buds? Maybe he'd been right, after all.

"Help! Somebody, help us!" The cry came from a young Gormotti woman and her Blade, a large and imposing, if fluffy, white tiger who was channeling ether to the twin rings she held. She'd long abandoned the scimitar sheathed at her side, it appeared, and with good reason: Amalthus's massive doubly-bastardized Titan weapons were approaching her from both sides.

Minoth glanced at Addam, who nodded and moved to take point against the beast the woman was facing. His greatsword was a much better approximation of a shield than Minoth's small and stealthy gunknives, after all. The Dark Blade ducked under sweeps of an engorged, veiny arm, trying to weaken the other inhuman mass of a Blade Eater's legs from afar with bullets instead of cuts.

Behind him, he heard Addam's reassurances to the woman and his grunts from taking wide swings with his sword. They were both chancing more towards the "best defense is a good offense" side of things, not that that was unusual given their weapon types. But still, shouldn't his prince be more careful? Locked against opposing targets as they were, neither was in a good position to confidently stagger and make collapse the enormous chimera-like creatures.

He felt the affinity golden and strong, and shook away the worries. They'd be fine. Or at least, he thought so until the woman shrieked, followed by a dull thud and the prince weakly urging her to flee. In the back of his mind and heart, the affinity was gone.

When Minoth next turned around, Addam was a crumpled heap of dented plate armor and chain mail. Blood from a gash on his stomach was seeping into the gold cloth around his waist, and he was coughing, hacking, some bodily particulate that definitely wasn't supposed to rise up that far.

"My prince!" Minoth's voice cracked with the joists holding up his world. He rushed to pull out the length of fabric and press it against the wound, perhaps too roughly and too tightly in his urgency. The reality of the situation was obvious.

This was it, the moment they'd always spoken of, so joking and jovial, so ignorant of it as an actual possibility because they'd lived for sixteen years as a family, and if not all of those then at least half. Dying on a battlefield, bruised and battered? The never-crossing of the thought was due not to willful ignorance but to simple, reasonable sensibility.

Now again to sensibility, and the logistic. "What will happen to Mythra? What will happen to me?"

Addam suddenly looked violently distracted. "Mythra's an Aegis. She won't die," he said simply. "But you...I'm so sorry to have done this to you, Minoth, after all you've been through. I hope you'll forgive me - well, not that you'll remember."

"No, Addam." Minoth shook his head to prevent the impulse from traveling down his arms and thus into Addam's undoubtedly fragile shoulders. "I'm not angry at you for doing this. It's your way and I wouldn't have had you act any different."

The prince made a vague nodding motion as he drifted back towards the ground. "So it's okay, then."

As they argued, the Titan weapons saw that their task was complete, and left them alone more in the interest of efficiency than that of pity.

"Flora and Xander are no doubt well, with Mythra and Malos protecting them. They'll keep your plays, you'll live on that way. The version of you that knew me." A smile crept onto the bloodied lips. "Maybe someday you'll find a new lost noble to hang around with."

"How could I ever find another one? I haven't even written a play about you yet." He should have said "never did write", he knew, but that reality needed to be staved at all costs, even by this flimsy humor. If Addam was trying to laugh, it wasn't particularly evident, because he just coughed more.

Minoth stared at his own wrists, as if willing the bracers to disappear so he could eviscerate his failure of a body before it retreated into a lifeless rock of a Core. Scowling, he jerked his gaze sideways to meet his Driver's.

"Damn it, Addam, it's Amalthus! I can't go back there!" The fear shone dangerously in his eyes. "I can't go through that again, even if I won't know that there's no benevolent prince, no you waiting for me on the other side. Even if I won't know what's happening to me. I can't-- I can't do that to him." So quickly, he cast aside his identity - no Addam there then to care, so it couldn't be the Minoth clinging to life here and now.

The prince's mind seem to swim at once aimlessly and with determination. "The woman I threw myself in front of, just there. Her Blade was a healer class. Maybe it's not fatal, after all. Perhaps there's some chance."

Even if the Gormotti warrior wasn't long gone, the prospects were far too grim. Minoth gulped and turned his head down, away. When he looked back up, the expression in front of him was one of profound sorrow that belied Addam's words. He'd never given up this wholly before.

"No, my prince. I'm fading. This is it, and you know it." Addam's wistful smile was tired. "So why are you hanging on, Minoth? You're too much of a...pragmatist for that." He'd been caught out.

"Jin told me. He said that...there are real Flesh Eaters. Ones that bond with the soul of their Driver, their real Driver. Successful experiments, if you will."

Addam tried to arch an eyebrow, but just ended up bonelessly manipulating the entire section of muscles and skin around his eyes.

"I'd have to eat your heart."

"Ooh, kinky," Addam slurred out. No, he...he couldn't. Not like that. Not like this.

Ignoring his apprehensions, Minoth began unbuckling the front frame of his Driver's armor so that he could pull away the chain mail and at least stop any broken links from further snagging in the wound. Architect, it was bloody.

"Why'd you do it, Prince?" he murmured softly, wretchedly rhetorically. The greatsword lay to one side, mangled and almost cracked in two from a stomp of the titanic monster's hoof.

I had an extremely convoluted double-take situation with this page when naming the Ancient Addam, but needless to say I am beyond happy with this concept. It's the thing I've ever done, if I do say so myself (and I do).

Chapter 39: The Fountain of Salmacis - "Unearthly calm descended from the sky..."

A little bit of gory details here, but more implicit than anything else. If you've played Torna and the portions of the main game that dovetail with it, you should be good to go.

"Well? Are you going to do it?" The luxury of time and cagey deliberation had once been theirs, but it was nowhere to be found now.

"Addam, I...I can't. Feels almost like cheating."

Addam reached a limp hand up to graze Minoth's shoulder. "You wouldn't cheat death for me, darling?" Minoth gave an involuntary shudder.

"What about Flora?" "One lost husband is better than two."

He didn't take the time to dissect semantics. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure. You're no prince, but you'll more than do. You don't have much of a choice, anyway."

As he drew a flashing dagger to cut into the perfect skin, yet untainted by the gore, Minoth very much doubted that.

"Architect...I wish you were dead already."

Squeezing his eyes shut, he carved in before Addam had a chance to retort. Color faded fast from once smiling cheeks, matching the gray of the dead prince's hair.

The organ was a writhing mass, and Minoth forced himself to figure out how to ingest it before all the blood ran out the nearest aorta to leave behind a chillingly white husk. It was a far cry from his favorite soup, or even a hunk of Volff Beastmeat.

Maybe it would be like eating an insect? He'd done that once, if you counted scorpions, mostly out of pure curiosity but to a certain extent out of need, stranded in Dannagh Desert once upon a time. He had to cut it, almost the size of his fist as it was - the heart, not the bug.

Eventually, he just loosened his throat and swallowed, one half after the other. Then, to distract himself from the weight in his gullet, he scooped up Addam's leaden corpse and cradled it against his chest, the twin wounds leaking against and staining the leather of his torso. The strength that surged back into his bones as he did so was proof that it had been...not worth it, but exacting of its purpose.

This wasn't how he'd wanted it to be, the last time he'd hold his Driver. After the startling and yet so natural revelation from Khanoro, they'd never gotten to truly appreciate it where they were. Tense fleeing back to the manor, tense boarding of the evacuation ship, tense making of plans while aboard, all wound up and now wound down and out. He shouldn't complain. Of course, he shouldn't complain. Hadn't this life been good to him? Twice over, and more. It was like he'd said: another Addam, another Ikhnaton? Powerful unlikely.

There was no else around. Couldn't have been, since if there were Amalthus's forces would be all over the earth, stamping out that life. Even still, Minoth knew he'd have to desecrate this ground further. He laid Addam against a tree and tried the ever-unfamiliar phenomenon of channeling raw ether into the palm of his hand.

Darkness was, of course, the most elusive element. It wasn't like holding a dancing flamelet, or wafting a breeze towards your face. What was it like? He couldn't very well produce the ether particles without knowing, without having a concept in his mind. But all he could think was anger, darkness of the heart. He'd be consumed by his element, it felt like. Consumed like a wink of light in the vastness of the sky.

A starry cloud burst into existence, roiling with thunder and astra. It was thicker, more robust than Minoth had ever seen or expected. It was Addam, he realized, the prince's light and spark and heartiness. And now he was going to use that powerful, potent energy to dissolve Addam's remains in a makeshift war pyre.

Something in his heart (Addam's heart?) panged, and he unwound the golden cloth fully, folding it up and tucking it securely under his belt. Hopefully the stains would come out with a bit of careful scrubbing. With the first wracks of a sob, Minoth summoned more of the cloud and shrouded his Driver in it.

Before he could add to it, the body was gone.

Minoth sat back on his heels, tears sucked dry by some force. Was that to be the effect...? Would it change his appearance, too? Maybe he'd end up with gray hair after all. He had intended to lie there and rest for the few hours it would take for the pseudo-flames to burn out upon their victim, but now there was nothing left for him here, not even the traces of a funeral site.

He picked himself up then, wishing there were something for his fingertips to grasp at as he did so.

The shade of the glen masked how early in the afternoon it yet was, so there was no excuse not to trudge on. He crested the hill and set his sights on the far-dotted tents of the refugee camp. Thankfully it had managed not to get obliterated thus far. Did Amalthus have some dignity yet remaining, not to order the attack on the weakest first? Maybe, but he'd sooner believe the whole thing was a gruesomely, ironically, unhappily happy accident.

It was nightfall by the time he made it back, pacing his stride to a strong walk. He had felt he could go farther, go faster, but didn't want to chance it. By then, his Core was glowing a brilliant hot pink, and the more he looked at it, the more the burning ache concentrated. Ducking behind a tree, Minoth pulled off enough of his armor to reveal the bare setting and slot in the cover piece he hadn't much used since before reuniting with Addam on that day in Aletta long ago.

As he shrugged his jacket back on, he could feel fatigue creeping in, so he leaned back against the tree and nodded off. Because of his resting spot's angle relative to the camp borders, it was unlikely that any enemy forces would get to him in the night without waking at least one militia member, and thus some substantial squad of the rest.

What awoke him was not sunlight or warsound, however, but, in fact, Malos's voice. "Hey, cowboy."

"Guilty," Minoth replied automatically. Then he really started to feel guilty. He stood with a stumble and focused his eyes on Malos's. They didn't look particularly threatening or haunted, only steady and almost warm.

"Mythra and the others here?" he asked, trying to be casual.

"Yeah..." The eyes began to twinge suspicion.

As they walked, Minoth tried to compose what he'd say. "I'm a Flesh Eater. A being with human and Blade cells, made possible and even necessitated by the mortally idiotic compassion of the love of my life."

Tact, Minoth, please, he chided himself. Even after all these years, he still possessed a terrifying capacity for bluntness bordering on rudeness. Call it très secco humor, if you must.

Malos ushered him into a smaller tent, some ways separated from the others. Flora, Xander, and Mythra were more cuddled than huddled together on the thin blankets covering the ground. Minoth wanted to deflect, wanted to just make a crack about the sleeping arrangement and encourage Malos to lie down with him, but he knew he couldn't.

Gently, he shook Flora awake. "Wha- who's there?! Oh, Minoth." Her smile and relief were genuine. "Where's Addam? Is he coming right behind?"

Minoth couldn't bring himself to shake his head, only tapping cryptically on the center of his armored Core Crystal.

"Minoth, where's Addam?" Flora's voice was hardening, sharpening.

The two taps he had first made were morbidly like a heartbeat, and Minoth found himself repeating them. Over and over, on and on, until the core heart within broke, and tears began to fall. He'd wanted, planned, to be a rock at this turning point, but it seemed that that was an unattainable fantasy.

He fell on the point of the crystal, the pain outside his chest finally matching the ache inside. Mythra was up and watching the scene with horrified eyes, hand clutched on Xander's yet-sleeping shoulder as he lay sprawled on the floor. Minoth rocked to the side on the ground, and Flora's eyes shot to the gold fabric on his waist, bloodstains and all.

"How are you here?" Malos spoke the crucial question in the air, after the foregone conclusion had been reached. The renewed Flesh Eater clawed at his Core Crystal, forcing out a hoarse "Take it off."

Both Malos and Flora bent over him, working at the impossibly stiff leather. The Dark Aegis quickly figured out the mechanism by which the inner layer fell away, and Minoth's chest, bare of old scars and glowing with the awful taint of a new one, soon appeared. The meaning of the pink cast was obvious, given what it recalled from eight years prior.

"I'm so sorry, Flora," he croaked out. "Addam said-- He said I shouldn't leave you alone. I don't know if you would have wanted this...I was being selfish. I'm sorry."

To his surprise, Flora said nothing, only smoothed his shirt back on and tugged him upright. "Does it hurt?"

He blinked at her. "Does it hurt? It hurts like hell, Flora. Inside and out."

"And would it have hurt more to die with him?" "...no."

She took his shaking hands and clasped them to try to calm his nerves. Hers shook too, almost imperceptibly. "I find that the hard choice is very seldom the wrong one. Morally, at least."

"Flora..." "Don't remonstrate yourself, Minoth."

Suddenly, she shook her head as if wincing from the feel of a bad habit. "I'm making it sound like I blame you, like I'm disappointed. I'm not half as good at expressing my emotions as Addam," she hesistated, "was, only good at analyzing them."

Flora drew a sharp breath and shook her head again with a wild, mighty effort. "Minoth, I draw strength and love from you. Honestly...it hurts that I have to find a way to communicate that to you. I wish it was implicit. But nevertheless. You are here, and one soul lost is better than two."

Hearing this, Minoth cut off any further potential words and bundled her in to his chest. Chin resting on her head, he tried to articulate, never mind enunciate, coherent, presentable words, but everything that came out was woefully disjointed.

"His heart is beating in my chest. I've never cried in front of anyone besides him. I didn't think I could do it, but he said the very same thing. We have to live on for him, Flora. Together."

They stayed like that for a long while. Eventually, Minoth released Flora from his embrace, and they stared at each other with that same aimless determination, glassy-eyed. Mythra shuffled over and wordlessly wrapped her arms around his shoulders, tucking her head into the yet warm crook of his neck. When she pulled back, Minoth gazed at her, too, then pressed a kiss to her forehead as they both squeezed back tears.

Malos was sitting cross-legged at Xander's feet, trying to figure out how best to spearhead the effort of explaining what had happened to him. Waking him up felt too abrupt, yet waiting until he awoke himself felt wrong. Luckily, Xander spared them the decision by stirring with a groan.

"Xander?" "Huh...?" The boy pulled an eye open. "Uncle Minoth?" He sighed as he stretched and sat up. "Thank goodness you're back. I was starting to worry about you!"

Addam's son's warmth and upbeatness clashed mightily against the stagnance of the tent air. "Where's Dad?" The query was casual, conversational, almost innocent. Minoth felt an instinct to let Flora handle the (literally) gory details, but he knew that wouldn't be right.

"Xander, your father is...no longer with us."

"He's gone? Like to another Titan?"

Xander's smile wobbled, then fell off his face with a crash. "Gosh, no, I can't fool myself like that. He's really gone, isn't he?" Minoth nodded sorrowfully, broken.

Seeing his uncle cradled between Mythra and his mother, more shock, this time undue, came over Xander. "Are you dying too? Right here?"

Malos placed a steadying hand over his Driver's, trying to stem the imminent flow of not denial's outburst but that of rampant inquisition, Xander asking so many questions that no single one could get to him. That seemed like the plan, at least.

"If you're here, that means he must have died nearby. Where's his body? Did you bury him already? Did he say anything? Was- was he--"

His resolve crumbled. "Why'd we have to get into this stupid fucking war?" came the soft sign of acceptance.

Xander's shoulders were heaving, and nobody reprimanded him for his crude choice of word.

"Xander, can you come here?" Minoth gently asked. In his adolescence, the boy had grown more prone to standoffishness when the situation and his emotions were against him, but he did as bid.

Flora removed her hand from where it had been resting over Minoth's Core Crystal, baring its garish new appearance. "I ate his heart."

Xander was uncharacteristically silent, morosely studying the crystal. "I didn't bury him. Never even thought to. Maybe if I'd been an Earth Blade..." Minoth chuckled darkly, humorless.

"Oh...Malos." "What's up?" the other Dark Blade responded.

"When I tried to concentrate ether in my hand to...dispose of his body, it was stronger than before. Not just because it felt like stronger ether, but because he basically vanished as soon as it touched him. That normal?"

Malos's eyes widened, then narrowed again. "Even I can't do that. I can wound someone, easy, but it's messy and not usually fatal."

"So that's the power I got from him. Like snuffing out a candle." Immediately, he knew down to his bones that he didn't want it.

Xander finally spoke again. "Do you think he's alive, inside you?"

Minoth hesitated, thinking back over the past half a day. He'd felt impulses, mental prompts to act the way Addam would and do the things he would do, but he rather thought those were more imagined.

"I don't think so." He rushed the next words out. "And if that's-- If that's not what you want, Mythra and Malos can factory reset me and you can toss the Core Crystal off the edge of the Titan. I'm sorry I didn't think to bring back more than just my own sorry ass."

Crossing her arms, Mythra cut in. "Uh-uh, Minoth. No way I'm doing that to you." Malos agreed, asking only half sarcastically, "You think you're just gonna get to give up? Just like that?"

Again, Xander broke his simmering silence. "How can you say that? How can you even think that?" he shot out, quickly crossing the barrier from speaking to yelling.

"You really think I want you to throw yourself off a cliff just because my dad fell in battle and you didn't die with him? Listen, Mythra's great, and Malos is awesome, and Mum, you're amazing too, but with him gone?"

Xander choked on teary air for a brief second. "You're all I have left, and not just because part of my father's soul is in your body." Minoth's hand reaching for his shoulder was roughly shoved away. "Why can't you see that? Why can't you just accept that we love you?"

The Flesh Eater's face turned stony. "I was never just your father's Blade. I remember things that, by rights, I shouldn't. Never mind that I never should have had to experience them."

Xander looked sideways up at him, less hurt brewing in his eyes than fire. "You think I care about that? If my dad thought that your history with Amalthus made you not worth loving, you wouldn't ever have known anything different, but he didn't, because you did deserve better. You spent three years with only him, and you never let him get to you. Malos can't say that from half that time."

Catching a start from his Blade out of the corner of his eye, he amended, "Yeah, I know he got worse, but still. I meant what I said, Minoth." At this, Minoth's face hung in defeat.

"I don't care what Amalthus did to you, you need to put it behind you. You can't let that stop you from trusting us. If you don't trust us, how can we trust you?" Xander's voice became small, retreating back into his age. "We need you."

They sat in silence for a moment, until Minoth sighed. "I'm not the trusting type, Xander."

The boy, now really a young man, nodded. "I know that. I'm just asking you to try."

"Didn't seem very much like asking."

Xander allowed himself a small smile. "Call it telling, then. You've had long enough for a test run." He huffed a laugh, shaking his head. "My dad was too easy on you. Guess I must have gotten it from my mum." Indeed, Flora was looking on, a superposition of age and youth moreso than she had ever been.

"I'm guessing that means you won't let me take watch?" In ordinary times, it would have been a happy occasion for teasing, but the look Xander and Mythra shared was devoid of humor.

"Fine, you're forcing my hand. C'mere." Minoth hadn't hugged his nephew in a long while, especially not in a position so close to cuddling as this was, but he heeded the younger's words and let himself take comfort from the embrace.

Indeed, just as they had been when he entered, so they stayed, piled up together and grieving close through the late night, early morning, into the day.

I was never the biggest fan of the way the whole Lora/Jin situation panned out, because okay, yeah, their hands get separated and then she's just too tired to keep running, and I've seen some say that she was trying to protect Jin, but she literally turns around into the blast like "Hit me, right now, kill me, do it, here under the sun and the face of God, I'm ready for ya!" which seems so very un-Lora-like. So, I'll usurp the idea, a little bit to the left. As ever, so, so many accidental parallels, whether from character to character or from things I wrote to things that happen in canon that I genuinely did not consider when writing, but here we have yet another subverted Addam-Zeke similarity.

The scimitar the Gormotti woman has is just a curved short-sword, like those you can find in Breath of the Wild. The Blade is indeed Dromarch, but I wasn't intending to be making any references with the Driver's weapon.

Chapter 40: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - "Something inside me has just begun, and Lord knows what I have done!"

heartbreak can be a physical, visceral thing
the feral gunshot thunder outside preemptively echoes the howling
you're not young anymore, and what if you're never whole?
they were your youth and they are gone

Morning saw a brisk washbasin trip to the other end of the camp. "You were able to wash the blood out?"

"Fortunately, yes. I don't think any of us were partial to that sight or smell, whether it was the last trace of him or not."

"You're pretty clinical about this whole thing, Flora," Minoth prodded.

Her hands clenched on the smooth fabric, sending the wrinkles that should have been on her forehead into the rippling threads. "There aren't enough of us around for me to get weepy."

Minoth looked down at the vague area of his chest and considered something. "Flora." She met his eyes with brows turned up. "If you ever need...anything..."

Cue gained, she moved without asking into his arms.

"I miss him so. It's only been one night, but when I was already missing him all the nights before..."

"You of all people shouldn't have to apologize, Flora." She smiled up at him, though he couldn't see. "Who said I was apologizing? I'm merely reasoning. I never would have thought I'd need someone to hold me so much."

Flinching, Minoth grasped the edge of the cloth, trying to seem casual as he put his hand near hers. He couldn't put anything over on her, though.

"Don't be a goose, Minoth. You've no obligation to do anything of the sort unless you're quite comfortable."

"What, and you are?" he said, finding his voice again. Flora pulled away so that her zinging, playful focus on his eyes wouldn't be lost. "Did you expect that I don't think you're attractive?"

"Surely there's more to it than that," Minoth fenced back, adjusting his gauntlets. This time, Flora just laughed.

"Stop fussing, we both know that's not like you." He stopped, sheepish. "You're capable, and you're wise, and you're loving. That sounds like a man I love to me."

"I'd more say it sounds like you yourself, missus." More laughter, like a mezzo-soprano bell. And...indeed, he would have missed that sound just as much as the prince's baritone lilt, if a reawakened Blade could in fact miss anything at all.

"He'd want us to take care of each other," Minoth said eventually, when the air had stilled. Flora nodded. "That's right. And I'm just saying that I'm glad of the company."

If there was more to be said, it was summarily curtailed by the yawning arrival of Xander, Mythra and Malos in tow. The boy's face was more than a little haggard-looking, and he latched onto his mother for a hug to stabilize the both of them. When they drew apart, he gave Minoth a tired, searching smile, then noticed the cloth the Flesh Eater was now holding.

"Seems kinda silly to hold onto something like that, since there's no Torna left to tie it back to, but..." Minoth shook his head. "Don't feel silly. It's a noble thing to be able to hang on to. Here." His offering was stopped by Xander's hand waving uncertainly in the general area between their waists.

"No...I think you should wear it. I mean...Mythra, gimme a hand." The Light Aegis had been looking on inquisitively, and now wandered closer at Xander's behest. He whispered something in her ear, and she grinned.

Working together, they tossed the cloth over Minoth's shoulder so that it wrapped across his front from left to right, stopping at his waist. Mythra fastened one end of the cloth about the left ether deposit on his back, leaving a length to flow, while Xander secured the other, shorter end in the back of his belt.

They stood back, triumphant, and Minoth stared back at them, half amused, half bemused, and all confused. "What's all this about?" he asked suspiciously.

Mythra wordlessly drew up an ether shield that could reflect light true to life and let him admire their work.

Admiration was perhaps not what he was most ready to give. "What is this, an Addam costume?"

Mythra rolled her eyes then, dissolving the shield. "Oh come on, don't tell me the theater kid in you doesn't love it."

"You look awesome, Uncle Minoth," Xander concurred.

Minoth put a hand back to feel around the ether deposits. Still there, untainted. "Well, alright, if I must."

"You do," they said in triumphant tandem. "Only thing missing is a little braid on the right side of your face."

A what? Minoth spluttered fruitless syllables in his consternation before getting out a frantic "I'm not--"

"You are," Flora interrupted, pulling him down by the uncaped shoulder and mercilessly twisting that one perpetual free lock so that it could be intertwined with strands from his sideburn.

"Minoth..." Malos started, when the named man was done being ever-so-slightly abused at the woefully capable hands of his late Driver's wife. "You know what we have to do now, right?"

"Affirmative. There's no more...he can't be expected to redeem himself now. We should have known it years ago, but we can't let it continue any longer."

Malos crossed his arms. "That's a little rich, coming from you. You did know, I thought. Even that first time I saw you."

"I...maybe you're right. Maybe I knew. But I didn't want to kill my Driver. Not until that brief period eight years ago when he got literally wiped out of my system, thanks to you, did I even have the capacity to, with any real impunity, and then I didn't care."

"So you weren't thinking 'die you fuck' every time you saw him from that moment on?"

Minoth barked a laugh. "No, Malos, I wasn't thinking that. For all the ways in which we, you and I, actually are alike, that's not one of them."

His voice softened a touch for his next words. "It's like I said. I wanted him to have a chance to redeem himself. I thought that that would be his cruel irony, that for all how irredeemable he thought the world and humanity was, the good monster was gonna come and get him and he'd be right again one day. At this point, it's just my patience that's run out. It's not revenge, it's not a big reveal, it's just the realization that it's go time, now."

Malos nodded. "Fair enough. I guess you're right - it's not like the first thing you think when you see someone going a little psycho is to kill them dead, especially not if they're...whatever a Driver is, in the end."

"And speaking of whatever a Driver is," Mythra, pioneer of the sentiment in probably more ways than her brother but still less than Minoth, started softly but firmly, "you doing okay?"

Preternatural supernatural cellular replication, ether mixing with blood, and all. Was he doing okay? He'd literally been the one to kill Addam, to cut away his last breaths and beats alike. He was no wimp, he could have carried the limp, dying body back to camp to at least give him the aforementioned proper burial. And maybe he wouldn't have died. Maybe Mythra really would have been able to save him, healer type or not. Light uplifted, didn't it? Unless it was horrid and too blindingly bright white, it did. Sure, light wasn't always good, but dark...no, not always bad either.

Minoth, Minotaur. Theseus and his ship. Legends he'd read in some old forge of forgotten history on Spessia, or Coeia - somewhere small and out of the way, not austere and checked-up like the veritable stores of information as could be found on the more prominent Titans. He hadn't come from Addam, similarities to Ikhnaton or not. There was the basis. Whatever had come in between, they'd never know, and that was fine. But then, Amalthus, pessimism and spartanhood and all. Finally, Addam the starkest opposite, yet he hadn't awakened to a goofball as might have been expected.

If you start with one Blade, one Core, and then you influence it over and over and over and over and over and over again throughout the years, centuries, and make it human in a twisted half-way by dint of reckless, evil, self-serving abuse, then make it back to lie among those not using halely holily ordained computerized facility, then thrust it back yet again through powerful, ritualistic last-ditch love...was it, he, even the same Blade anymore? And did it even matter?

Because they all had to reckon with that, even in the normality of Blade lifecycles. Leave aside the question of whether Malos was the same Malos as he had been sixteen years ago (though he most definitely was); what is a personhood, to a Blade? It's definitionally found in your Driver, and so then you're not the same person ever. Should you want to be? It's wrong to want to be. Cheating. Cheating death, cheating life. A doppelganger only. Of them, of yourself not yourself because Blades don't have a persistent consistent self. Fuck it all to hell.

"I'm fine," he managed at last. "But what about you? Didn't you feel anything? You must have."

Mythra looked down, pursed her lips. After all this time she still didn't want to be caught caring.

"It's okay to miss him, you know. Just because I had this whole grand arc doesn't mean he wasn't yours too. All of ours."

"I wish you wouldn't say was," she mumbled. Minoth didn't bother with a half-feigned "What was that?" to coax the confidence out of her. Of course she did. They all did. And probably it could have been helped, somehow, but it hadn't been, and it still wasn't, and it never would be. Never again.

He put a hand out to her shoulder and gently stroked the bare skin with his thumb. She was shaking, ever so slightly, and he could feel it through the gloves. "I'm sorry, Mythra." Because Minoth, you dumbass, pay attention, don't let our fucking Driver die. We're supposed to protect them. Mutual give-and-take, sure, but we're supposed to be the fighters. The sword and the shield, no matter the class.

Come to think of it, he'd never put up an ether shield. She could do that, and Jin could do that, so it wasn't just healers and Aegises. Aegaeon too. Brighid...yes, he'd seen her do it. Haze, of course, just as he'd said. Malos, even, very often around Xander as of late. Was the protocol missing? Did they get named by Driver, so as to better make singular target, and EthShld_Amalthus_INDOL_3553_01 had been wiped out by Malos's cheap yet unintending trick, never to be replaced with a new one like EthShld_Addam_TORNA_3572_01 because of all the mess-up, despite Mythra's, Pneuma's, best and worst efforts? Architect, Theseus, cut me a break.

Always in pairs it comes. And then the third, an apology. The fourth, an explanation. We are five now. Six. Whatever. Too late. Not necessarily too little, but too late.

"I can still feel him, you know. From you."

Minoth's head bobbed uncertainly as he lifted his hand away and turned it, by angles and by degrees, to point inward at his chest, at the Core yet covered by his flashy new garment. "From this?"

"Yep," Mythra said, popping the P not in tetchy annoyance but out of a lack of anything else to ground herself with. "His ether signature and yours are one and the same now, more or less."

"Is that good, do you think?" He didn't quite know whether or not Blades received new elements to their ether signature from each consecutive Driver, or even the first. Yes, of course, the data was there to parse and all, just like his wringer of a head had been through it not two minutes ago, but to have it emanate off of him so naturally?

Malos snorted. "Just sounds pretty gay as hell to me."

"Not into vore, Malos," Minoth deadpanned. "Leave it alone."

The joke came turned about before he'd made the (obvious) connection back to his being a fucking full-blown Flesh Eater. A being with human and Blade cells. A being, not a person. Something that is. Something that exists. Maybe you'd rather it didn't. Were you the flesh, or the teeth sat about table? Were you the Core, or the falsely flapping skin? You were both, of course you were, and then isn't it enough to just be? No, it's not. It never is. Virtue deals in absolutes and only the truest god can mark us well or foul before, after, our absolution has come.

"I'm gonna...go take a walk."

He never announced things like that, always just went, master of his own destiny and all that. If Addam had been there...no, Lora was the only one who'd pop in with an "Oh, why don't I come with you?" Maybe Haze as well, by somewhat of the same token. He didn't even know. Couldn't even know. Why was this new? Why, after all this time, were there still plot twists to be found lurking around the corners? A sign of bad writing, if the characters haven't settled yet.

The exit was quiet and unnatural. His bootsteps were fresh, strong, thundering, and yet even the birds in the trees seemed to lay silent.

"Uncle Minoth?" And there was one who wouldn't ask to go either, because he was timid then, and insightful now.

"What about it, Alexander the Great?"

"You promise you'll keep your feet on the ground?"

A ship is made to take to water and depth. A man, a myth, a legend isn't. Or no, the latter two...they're made to flutter and glimmer away. At base, he was made to walk. Earth and shadow, shadow and earth. Nothing so light as the clouds.

I make no promises, he thought, I never have, but he had. Not so directly, but he had.

"Maybe we all should start walking. You got a map anywhere around?"

Now Xander pulled him back. "Not today. We should wait at least one more night, for you to..."

"Xander, I'm alright." I promise, and all that. When he turned back to look at the group, Malos and Mythra were flanking Flora, Xander stood to her side and slightly forward.

"Something's not right with that picture," Minoth offered semi-lamely.

"One thing," Mythra allowed. "Don't make it two."

Minoth sighed, let himself sag. The cape flapped weakly in the breeze, rustled over his chest. "As long as I know where we're going."

"Sure, okay." Malos was ready with the plan of execution. "We want to make it to Prendria Port, so we can blend in among the commercial travelers. Before that is Phixis Ridge, and before that is Helnai Plain. Just to the west of where we are."

"And go west, young man, so did the prophet say."

Minoth's nonsensical pronouncement was met with blank stares. "Fine, I concede the stage. After all, no prophet am I, huh? Because...because..."

"Don't." He couldn't tell which of the other four had said it. The family only additive, thus far, and then no. Who was next? Flora?

"I'm gonna...go take a nap." And none of them stopped him this time.

Minoth the recovering Catholic is finally ready to...yeah. Yeehaw!

Chapter 41: Follow You Follow Me - "I can say, the night is long, but you are here, close at hand, oh, I'm better for the smile you give."

it seems as in a dream
but not even a dream could open out
to be as surreal as this
ground me, that i might not collapse

the air is bizarre, fragmented
that smile doesn't belong there
two of me walking side by side
all are here but none are present

walk with me, in this night
death bears down but we are unafraid
we are already half gone, anyway
does this street run one way or two?

Something burned, pulsed in his abdomen, somewhere lost among the physiology that, for all of Amalthus's research, he still didn't really understand. It was unlike the presence of a Core Crystal, which you could feel at once in your head and at its point of mounting, connected by a thread both within and without. Instead, this was horribly physical and bearing no peerage with any other system so thoughtfully installed by the Architect.

At first the sensation was just uncomfortable in a dull, heavy way, but then the mass began to writhe and thrash. Suddenly, it was in his throat, a spaceless block that preempted any howl of wind nor woe from escaping. He tried to gasp breaths to ease the occlusion, to no avail as it seemed to transcend the logic of whichever organ it inhabited. Then, all too soon, it was no longer in his throat.

The wretched entity was a scorpion, crawling out of his mouth and onto his face, tracing wicked patterns over the right cheek, crossing the bridge of the nose, up over the left eye. Each track of its trawl replaced the skin beneath it with hard, ugly carapace, and the nascent shell was rent in a ghastly two by an almost-perfect division along the vertical axis.

His eyes were rolling back and he felt strangely lost with the ground beneath immaterial, but at least that was all. If he filled his mind with enough distraction, he could ignore whatever was happening.

"Going to try to imagine your way out of this, are you?" The scorpion was speaking to him - not the one on his face, but the one that was his face. "Going to take the easy way out? The moving pen fucking writes, and you are writ yourself a monster."

"What is there left in this world that you haven't so greedily consumed in service of your own goals? Everything a character, a setting, a prop for your idiotic plays. Sure, with those you can do anything, because you make the rules. You want to make the rules?"

He wanted to raise his hands to his face, or what was left of it, and scrape the chiron away with frantic fingers, but those appendages were arrested by his sides, as if held there by merciless arachnoidal pincers. If that was making the rules, then yes, so be it, he'd rather the agency be on his side.

"When will you stop? When will you realize that this world isn't for you? Who made you think that you had the right of it? Who told you that you could have him?" The last words were venomous, spat, and the original desert creature was slamming its stinger under his Adam's apple. He yelped in pain and terror.

"Even us, even the insects, you will not leave alone. You despoil our homes and destroy our brethren, again and again for your oh-so-beloved craft. Would they even admire you if you didn't have that ridiculous hobby? Haven't you overstayed your welcome? Why don't you wander the desert in cyclical, pointless life for a change? Don't you deserve that? Or do you even deserve to be alive?"

He didn't know, and he'd sought the answer to that last question for, oh, years and years and years and no one could tell him but him, no one could know until it was over, and how could this midnight apparition of gruesome proportion be that which held the key?

He clawed at his throat then, and his breath was constricted by forces both inside and out, and the scorpion was raising twin pincers around his neck to his tender scalp, and he could barely even scream--!

"Shhh...shhh, love."

Minoth was then vaguely aware of the presence of Flora's chest somewhere underneath his chin, and her arms wrapped around the back of his head like a brace with the finest of organic strength. She was soft, and he, thank the Architect, was no scrabbled shape against her. Tears were leaking out of his eyes and dripping down over his nose to pool on the gray-brown earth just underneath the blanket. He felt irredeemably dirty and entirely unsuited to even be near her, let alone touch her.

"What did you call me?" Minoth croaked out, but Flora, for the most part, ignored the question. His hair tie was pulled out with devastatingly gentle but profoundly determined care, and her thin, strong fingers combed through strands that were as ashen as his face felt, from his temples to the very tips. His own hands lay limp at his sides, naked below hitched-up sleeves. The rough fingers worked mindlessly.

"You should drink some water," she said, breaking the now over-still silence. Implicit in the suggestion, nay direction, was a request that he sit up, but he soon found that he couldn't without yet leaning on her; the compromise was for him to lay his head in her lap after she had sat up and crossed her legs. Flora was unbothered, offering Minoth a canteen without condescenscion, then plying it for him just the same, and ah, Flora heals an aching soul, he thought, that old chestnut.

When he was hydrated and had finished stiffly rolling ankles and cracking knuckles, Minoth made to turn over and fall back asleep on the floor. There was a nagging thought, something to the tune of not knowing how to properly thank and/or repay Flora for her generosity and succor, but he dismissed it because making a decision, a motion like that right now seemed like it would only invite more nightmares.

She didn't exactly stop him, but her next words did as good as. "Will you be alright?" And who could know?

"That's not for either of us to worry about," he replied hoarsely, and yet was supine in his inanimation. The tent peak was far away; there was probably a wasp's nest up there, and let them be welcome to it.

Here it was again, like so many years ago: gently, quietly, softly, for a child's ears to hear, but perfectly adjusted with that child's age as Xander lay sprawled on the other side of him, and could he be a "love"? Sassy quips of "darling" and "dear" and whatever that relationship with Addam had been, somehow cloaked in such an interesting masculinity, but still it was all because of his trauma, Addam had loved him despite it and they had been grinning lovers on a desert plain made home...and yet here was Flora.

Addam's way of taking care of him had been to let him be open, to be always touching and simultaneously afraid to touch too much, and by that token expose what was natural and right. Time healed him, healed them. Then Flora was here and she was closing the wounds herself, not feeling around in the dark but being precise and measured and calling him "love" because that was gentle and that was what he needed, even if it was a little blunt and unfamiliar at first. The flybuzz thought about thanking her swallowed up his mind with immediacy.

Her eyes were bright piercing blue in the dusky darkness, and his eyes were crystal reflections of sorrow when he looked up at her.

"How can I take care of you?" the words came somehow automatically, and she smiled quietly, matching the sorrow, and lay down next to him in the hollow of his abdomen with a hand placed just as naturally atop the brunt of his jaw, thumb rolling over like a glacier in the night.

"Let me take care of you," she said, and Minoth felt that that wasn't quite right, but at the same time doubted very much that Flora would say something that she didn't mean implicitly, and know to be valid. His Core Crystal burned an unnatural pink between them.

"So...you can worry about it," he said clumsily, and it was almost a question even though it was a concession, but the answer was yes, and in fact you can too, you big oaf, and you had better. The slow, even thumb traced over his scar, because oh, of course, wasn't that the everpresent glittering lure? Even for one such as she. "Somehow I think I always have."

The tent was silent, and then he offered a thought to that faraway ceiling: "When did I get to be the fragile one?"

There was a giggle, and a soft kiss at the corner of his jaw. "That I always knew you were," Flora replied, and Minoth felt incredibly endeared.

"You seem to know a lot of things, Flora." Her head was tucked in the crook of his neck so wonderfully securely.

"The questions this world asks of someone like me aren't nearly as unanswerable as those that fall to someone like you."

Couldn't have been more right, could she have? "Can I ask you something else you know the answer to, then?"

"Go ahead," she said, the words ringing in the empty, not to say stale, air for reasons other than just the lovely tenor of her voice, "I don't mind."

But she would mind this, wouldn't she. "Can I kiss you?" Minoth asked tentatively, feeling his fragility and even frailty quite headily.

Flora stiffened, almost imperceptibly. "You're not asking me." What? He certainly wasn't telling her, of all things. "You're asking Addam."

Oh. "No...I'm asking you. If I was asking Addam, I'd probably still be in the nightmare." She didn't answer him.

"I'm here by a pretty long stretch of happenstance. It's like something Addam used to say - I want to do something deliberate, for once."

"That's so," she replied slowly. Minoth's palms were growing clammy, and he was suddenly glad that they were turned in towards his sides, even though that meant he was being closed off to her. "Can I? Or rather, do you want me to?"

Flora pulled herself out of the strikingly natural spot where she had fit and propped herself up on her elbows and wristbones. Somehow she still looked delicate and proud despite the awkward position and the nerves he could feel dancing in her eyes.

"You can." He wasn't sure if that was really the question he'd wanted answered, but no matter. Minoth leaned up himself and, after a last moment of hesitation and searching inward and outward, brushed his lips as softly as he could across her cheek. Did it carry all the gratitude and gravity and affection he meant it to? He hoped so. One couldn't really know these things either.

When he drew back, Flora's mouth was hanging open slightly - was that right? That didn't seem-- "Oh, you poor thing. You poor, beautiful, terrible, wonderful thing," she breathed.

Flora was gazing into his eyes with something dreadfully like awe and blessedly unlike pity. "Oh, where are your silly hands?" she said, almost gasped, and felt around anxiously for them.

"My...hands, they're-?" The right was just then held under hers against her cheek, and the left suspended between them with fingers interlaced. Flora's grip was surprisingly strong, but then when Minoth looked into her eyes it seemed merely a blink of wist in comparison. She appeared so as to have just bitten back a word. When he gave no rejoinder of his own, she went ahead with it.

"Do you feel my hands?" He nodded, still staring into her eyes. "What does my face feel like?"

It looked so small next to his brown, creased hand, large and imposing even without the gloves.

"Soft," he murmured. "You're beautiful." Flora blushed despite herself, but was undeterred.

"Are you here with me now?" Minoth considered that for a moment.

"I don't know...squeeze my hand so I can find out?" Suddenly, he felt every tendon in his hand between her fingers' grip, and the outer ridge of his index knuckle was emphasized by drawn-out pressure from her thumb.

He nodded again, shakily. "I'm here...Flora."

"Can I kiss you, Minoth? For real, I mean." She sighed a laugh through the last words.

"It's okay with me," he answered, swallowing. So Flora mirrored the posture of their already deposed hands by swiveling her right around the front of Minoth's left to cup against his face, and brought him closer.

And then-- She kissed him, slow and sweet and shallow and he felt that he certainly knew if not all then at least most of what she was trying to impart.

If anything was happenstance, it was this, Minoth realized, as Flora gently stroked her thumb over the corner of his lips and their foreheads were leant together. "I didn't ask Addam about that," he mumbled, to no one in particular. She laughed prettily, so very like a flower.

"That's okay. I already did." His eyebrows shot up as far as could be managed with his current free forehead real estate. "You did?"

She shook her head wistfully, and her eyelashes fluttered against his. "Not really, but you know if I had he'd have said yes." She was right, of course, and who should know better than she? Only him, probably, and then not even.

Now for a question he didn't already have the answer to. "And you?"

She burrowed into his chest and his arms wrapped so naturally around her back, and then she gave a maudlinly muffled reply. "Well, of course. Who's that who almost tripped over me and much more than almost stole my husband's heart? I think I have a right to know."

And once more Minoth thought it was over and done with, but of course Flora's head popped back out of their embrace one last time. "I said I'd have asked Addam about it like you were his...his possession, and that's not right at all. What if I had asked you?"

He almost laughed aloud at the sobering thought. "I wouldn't apologize too much. If there's anybody who I'd like to say could lay claim to me, it'd be him."

Oh, and what was that? "So what of the lady of the house, hmm?" His recent amused tack had already steered them more in the direction of banter, and he latched on to it with abandon. He could feel her smile from where her head lay back nestled underneath his jaw.

"If I were to write a character like you, I don't know if I could succeed in making one half so spirited. And if I did, I'd sit there and ask myself, where's the flaw? Will she ever falter? She must!" Must she? When had she ever? Perhaps she didn't need to, to be human.

"I didn't make you, Flora. Couldn't even come close. But I'd ask myself that nevertheless. Would it be more of a mark on your character to sit by and be complacent with your husband's Blade being a second partner to him in full measure, or to engage with that unpalatable rogue personally? The last thing I want to do is overstay my welcome."

"Minoth, are you just trying to get me to call you more pet names?"

His hands were too full for a gesture of mock offense, so he settled for a weak "You wound me, Lady Origo! Do you think so lowly of me after all?"

"Mmm, no," she said, nuzzling into his neck. "I think you're an absolute darling love, and I won't hesitate to tell you so again."

Minoth shook his head wonderingly. "How can someone so small be so fearless?" And then, of course, one so tall so fearful?

Flora laughed just about directly into his ear. "That's just part of my charm, isn't it?" It was, and he squeezed her tight and felt in every possible type of core that he would protect her always - even if she didn't need it.

Would you believe I wrote this before the Ikhnaton one-shot? Gosh, I really finagled myself some artful lines with that idea.

Here's a bonus song for this chapter, because I can't help it and it's just so...momence. Gosh, this one makes me teary...

Chapter 42: Spectral Mornings - "As one door closes, another draws apart, a seed of hope in a darkened heart."

If you're going to break the rules, do it for a wonderful aesthetic reason. Perhaps don't approach any damn way you please, it's just that...sometimes you have to do something that's beautiful. I think it's quite sophisticated, and at the same time quite simple. One might even say simple by virtue of its sophistication, and vice-a vers-a.

"Have you ever learned to fight, Flora?"

They were stopped for the afternoon, sitting under some tree or other, on the first (really?) leg of their journey. Minoth and Mythra had been enjoying what was admittedly a damned cool makeshift battle affinity, tossing a greatsword back and forth while they managed their own weapons in front and rear guards.

"As it happens, I have, but it's not what you would expect," she answered the Flesh Eater matter-of-factly.

"And why's that?"

She flourished a switchblade, produced from where he had no chance of telling. At his bewildered expression, she added, "Oh, I was no street rat, but Addam caught me playing around with it one time, and that year for my birthday, as a joke, he gifted me this engraved ice-forged piece of work. Here, read the inscription."

Minoth reached out to gently grasp the blade, careful not to smudge its polished sheen. "'What a dream for a bastard prince to court a queen.' That's a gag gift?"

"Would you have said that to a twenty-one-year-old teacher's assistant and been serious?"

"I certainly would have," he said, handing back the knife.

"Oh, you!"

Minoth grinned. "Incorrigible is the word, and you said it yourself."

Flora turned her back to him, not in affront but so as to settle into the space between his legs. "You're quite proud of how alike you and Addam have become, aren't you?" He rested his chin on the top of her head and sighed.

"It's like the Architect saw us destined to speak with the same voice. When two pieces of anything are joined, you'd have a hard time severing the join cleanly if one half was removed after the fact." Another sigh. "I learned that from him and his woodworking."

"You didn't answer my question, Minoth," Flora teased him.

"Ahh...I'm proud, alright? I'm proud."

"Good," she pronounced with a laugh. "I don't want to feel alone in the way I'm grieving him. Or rather, I don't really feel like I am at all."

Worry suddenly clouded her face and coated her voice. "Do you think that's okay?"

He hugged her. "It'll have to be. And we're lucky. No one's looking either way."

Flora craned her neck around as much and as quickly as she could, exclaiming, "Minoth, that's a cop-out!"

He only hugged tighter, however. "Mhm, and you gave me a cop-out the last time you said that."

"Minoth..."

"Your captive audience, madam."

She tried to rush the next words out. "I wish we had been able to help you get comfortable with the idea of this sooner, before..."

Minoth spun her around to face him. "Now, Flora, you know you can't deliver a line like that without facing your audience."

She blushed faintly. "Do I need to say it again, now? I wish we had all held each other, the three of us, and often."

He nodded. "I agree with you. I'm surprised we didn't. But, this'll have to do."

"Mmm, I suppose it will..."

"Now about that switchblade...!"

"Oh, you're quite taken with it, aren't you? Well leave off, you've already got one - two, in fact!"

He laughed, short and wry, and she was glad of the sound. "Not for me, for you!"

Flora scrunched up her nose. "I've already got it, whatever could you mean?"

The laughter continued, mellifluous. "Flora, Flora, my dearest flower. A Driver needs a weapon, does she not?"

"A Driver? I don't have a Blade, therefore I can't possibly be a Driver. Be logical, Minoth!"

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead with more force than was necessary. "You have an eternally devoted Blade whom you've known for years. Of course you can be a Driver! And I'm saying please...?"

Realization dawned, and she reached up to tweak his nose. "Addam's made you dreadfully silly. If you insist, of course we can try it."

Xander had been listening in, quizzical and somewhat amused, and now broke in. "Wait a minute, Uncle Minoth, I don't know about--" Both the adults trained curious eyes on him.

"I mean, what if Mum gets hurt? Isn't it safer the way it is now?" Minoth considered this.

"Perhaps, but I feel we could protect her better if she was where we could actually keep an eye on her. Mythra and I just dancing around smashing things up is honestly...not ideal." The Light Aegis grinned and stuck out a hand for a high five; Minoth punched it away.

Xander was unconvinced. "Don't get me wrong Mum, Uncle Minoth, I'm glad you're uh...getting along and everything," and here they had to share a slightly guilty look, "but do you really have to do this now?"

"What?" "Excuse me?" In the back of his head, Minoth heard a faint "I beg your pardon?" from Addam. Xander scratched the back of his own head just as his father would have done.

"I mean, it seems to me like you want Mum to be your Driver so your bond can get stronger, and all that. Is that not it?"

Laughing softly, Minoth produced one of his weapons and began to twirl it on one finger. "I won't lie and say that that's not part of it, but it's not like you couldn't do it too." Ah yes, he got a flash of excitement there.

"How's this? Whichever one of you is better at handling one of my guns gets to be my Driver first. Go on, Xander, I know you fancy yourself an expert," he teased.

Xander grinned, taking the proffered gunknife eagerly. "That's right Mum, just sit back and let me show you how it's done."

Flora was shaking her head lightly and smiling, but whether encouraged to or not she leant back against Minoth's other arm as bidden.

The Flesh Eater had already unlocked the mechanism that allowed the weapon's hilt to shift from straight on, an inverted knife grip, to angled down, such that it fit comfortably in your hand and you could aim. Huh, and it was set at the right angle for his slightly smaller hands too. Xander felt a little patronized - just a little.

He lifted his hand in front of him and tried to remember the ideal position for each of his fingers. This was the easy part, too, not like passing two guns back and forth between your hands while they were spinning! Deep breath in, deep breath out, then in again, and--

He dropped it, almost immediately. His mother's hand shot out to catch it, and she brandished it with expert ease before cocking the barrel to his forehead. "Mum-!" She leaned up, moved the gun aside, and kissed his forehead with a smile. "No hard feelings, okay, Xander?"

Just like the twinge about his uncle coddling him with the grip adjustment, Xander wanted to pout, just a little, but didn't. The Blade was watching them with a warm expression, and he almost resented it, because Minoth hadn't been entirely wrong that he couldn't up and replace his father just like that. He loved him, no question (yes, dear reader, pronouns ambiguous), but...he almost didn't want the hole in his heart, their lives, to be filled. Well, a compromise was in order.

"You better treat her right, okay?" They didn't laugh, didn't condescend, only listened to his request with gravity.

"I guard your mother's life with my own, Xander. Yours too. You can be sure of that."

Xander was silent then, pursing his lips and looking down out of the corners of his eyes.

"I agree with you," Minoth said, breaking the silence and almost seeming like prodding before he finished the thought. "It should have been me. If it was me writing the scene, it would have been."

He'd thought about it, in depth, too, of course. He'd heard traces of information about what he would have termed Crystal Eaters during his last days on Indol, and even though he didn't have the faintest degree of certitude that it would work, he'd gladly have stabbed himself through the heart (or adjacent) if it meant Addam wouldn't have had to die.

Jin's words had seemed more trustworthy and promising, though, and he suspected he'd carry the guilt of it for the rest of his...gods be damned, this was going to be a long life. Again. Even knowing to any extent why he'd done, or hadn't done, what he'd done didn't make the guilt any less weighty and terrible.

Minoth's spiral of dark thoughts was interrupted by one small, cold hand gripping one of his own, and the other cupped against his cheek.

"Are you here?" Thank the Architect. "Here, Flora."

"Can you tell me three things that make you glad you are?" With pleasure.

"Your hands..." he grasped the one on his cheek and pulled it away so as to kiss the palm, "...Xander's smile..." wherein a tentative pat on the boy's knee coaxed it out, "...and Mythra's cooking."

"Minoth!" "What?" He had realigned his sitting position so as to be able to lean all the way back down to the ground, and peered lazily up at her from there.

"So you've got jokes, have you? I'm not quite sure what to think about your state of mind, in that case."

Minoth waved a hand over his face, like an old habit of brushing away gnats. "Don't think about it so much. It'll work itself out." Something felt unbalanced near his hips. "Xander, toss me my gun, will you?" he asked, purposely keeping his eyes closed. When the weapon came arcing obligingly, not to say clumsily, through the air, he caught it with ease and began to spin it on one finger, using another to give more momentum every now and then.

"Can you catch, Flora?"

"Catch what, exactly?" she answered his question with a question, nervous despite herself.

Minoth all but spoke a shrug at her. "Could be one thing, could be two things. I guess it could be three, depending on how you count."

"You're very casual, for all the gravity you usually seem to place on a thing like this," Flora half-teased, half-warned. Now he really did shrug.

"I'm in good hands. You're in good hands. We're all in good hands. I'll catch you if you fall over - matter of fact, I can catch you now." And his smile was roguish and hers was coquettish and Xander more than just about wanted to vomit, because what the hell was this?

"Stop," he said distractedly, louder than he'd intended but certainly not louder than his brain was screaming. The adults both swiveled to stare at him. "What?"

"Stop it. Just stop it. This is way too weird - this is gross! How can you do this? This isn't what I meant and you know it - both of you!"

Unlike the other two times it had happened in the course of this conversation, Flora and Minoth seemed to pinch closer together rather than farther apart at Xander's interruption.

"You think this doesn't affect me? You think I'm still just the little kid who doesn't know better and will just go right along with it when a third person comes in and starts kissing his father, and sleeping with him, and then his mother too - right after his father dies, on top of it all?"

Xander slumped down and away, into himself. "It feels like you're taking advantage of me, my good nature, because you know how much I love you. I don't...I don't want to believe that, but that's what it feels like. Just so you know."

"Xander." Minoth's voice was cold, hard, commanding, of a sudden, a stark contrast to the wile he'd kept cast over just a minute before. "This doesn't match what you told me then. I'll take you at your word, I'll be what you need me to be, even - maybe even especially - if what you need me to be is gone, but I need you to tell me straight out." As he spoke, he moved to sit up in a neutral position with knees half-bent, finally well away from Flora.

Xander struggled with this for a moment. "Well, okay, but...no. I can't do that. I can't tell you what to do."

"Can I show you how I feel, then? That is, if it won't make things much weirder than they already are." He said it with understanding, not mocking - never mocking.

"What do you mean?" Xander, of course, still felt a little more than slightly mulish, but was trying his best to be open.

Crossing his arms, Minoth straightened all the way up. It was the orator's stance, and he clung to it, though perhaps after all this time he didn't really need to, did he? "I'll give you a little preamble, then. How much do you remember of when you were a baby, Xander?"

"Not that much, I guess. I mean, I didn't exactly think I would be expected to." Minoth's eyes were piercing, and the gaze would be unnerving to any other soul - well, to Xander, in this moment, it was.

"It was more or less a rhetorical question, but what's the 'not that much' that you do remember? You, ah, you can't hide from me, Xander. Like it or not, I know you."

I know you. Haughty words from the cowboy, but he was right. He could hide from his father, almost his mother, too, better than he could hide from his uncle, ancillary and even superficial title though it was.

"I remember that time when I was...what, two and a half? Three?" Xander started steadily, even intensely. No use in pretending, after all. "When you and Dad were arguing about something, and then he said something that really pissed you off, and you got up and were about to storm out, but then you stopped."

A faraway look came into the boy's eyes. "You stopped when you looked at me."

Minoth nodded sagely, though yet vulnerable in his lead of the conversation. "I stopped when I looked at you. And do you know why?"

Xander gave a minute smirk despite himself. "Because you've got a thing for babies, or something, or because you thought Mum would bite your head off. I don't know, it was weird and I was a toddler. I probably just remember it because it was weird." That wasn't all a lie, anyway.

When he stopped his miniature tirade and looked across the imaginary line in their chosen patch of ground, he saw a fond look on his mother's face and a look he couldn't quite decipher on his uncle's. But wait, he had seen it before. So many times, actually. It was, hang on...oh! It was like he had successfully written a plot twist that someone hadn't caught, only what they hadn't caught was fairly obvious, and the twist wasn't really twisting at all, and was it worth it to pull the wool over someone's eyes when the real meaning you wanted to get across was the thing that they had missed, the thing that was right and safe and heartfelt? ...Oh.

"I stopped because you, Alexander Origo, have my entire heart. Just as much as your father, or your mother, or whatever the hell Mythra and Malos are doing - yes, slowly but surely, they're catching on, hacking their way in."

The Aegises, round the bend of the tree, were torn between twin eyerolls and actual feeling smiles. Yeah...they loved the guy. Who wouldn't? To quote him, "it'd be a crime not to." The four gathered around him were arrested underneath the spell of the stirring monologue. But hang on, catch a caveat there...

"Oh, heart, Core, whatever it is I have or have had...you always used to put your hand on my Core Crystal, whenever I held you and sang you a song or read you a story. You weren't afraid of the messed-up colors, the jagged fragments, the failure that I was. I was going to storm out of that dining room and out of the house and maybe never come back, because in spite of it all I still didn't really know what I was doing there in the first place, but I stopped when I looked at you, because your sweet, young face said, 'I like you, for who you are, no matter what you are.'"

Unable to think of a better immediate reaction, Xander simply scratched the back of his head, just like he always did when it came to a lack of words. "When you put it like that, I kinda feel guilty," he offered sheepishly, at last.

"For what?"

"You know, keeping you trapped up with us nuts for all these years."

Minoth raised a jagged eyebrow. "I know you're bluffing, and yet..."

"Stop being a goof - that's my job. Come on, show me what you wanted to show me," Xander prompted. He was right, of course - how was everyone in this family always so right? Well...not so bad, considering that he, proud cowboy himself, was included.

Minoth beckoned with proud nose and open hand, and Xander went surprisingly unreluctantly.

"Do you mind putting your hand on it now, or is it still too soon?"

Xander breathed a tepid grin, shaking his head and looking down. "After that speech? What am I gonna do, not humor you?"

The pink of the Core looked sharp and threatened heat, but when Xander placed a careful hand over it, the feeling was far from malevolent, and opened up into a wondrous unexpected depth. It was very unlike Malos's darkness, much more mature and of a higher mind, somehow. He should have known so, after all - how many times had he babbled on about the spectacular, dazzling dark of the myriad beautiful stars in the sky, as that pitifully small eight-year-old? He bit back a "Whoa. Not what I was expecting," because of course he was expecting just that (or at the very least lying to himself about the timeline of his reaction).

"It's still you," was what he finally came up with. "It's not...it's like you said. It never was anything to be afraid of, and it still isn't now."

Minoth was studying his face in quiet fascination - why was that? Was he wrong? He hadn't done anything to warrant such confusion, had he? He was just doing what he'd been asked, and following suit with what he had hoped was an appropriately poetic--

When the ether came pouring unbound into his heart, he immediately understood. The soothing deep purple energy coiled around him in a warm, protective embrace - not as fierce nor fiery as Malos, but just as strong, perhaps stronger for all its fortitude marshalled down from brute force. Even though this was the first time he'd felt it, Xander could then so intuitively understand the whole of his life, the expanse of his growth, as it lay wrapped up in the starry, wistfully electric hold. It made his own story seem so vast, so very un-"teenager who just so happened to be along for the ride with his god-powers adoptive sister and brother slash aunt and uncle".

"It is like I said," Minoth began quietly. "You had my entire heart before, and I give it to you now. If I were taking advantage of you, if I didn't trust you implicitly, if I didn't trust myself to be trusted, I think I'd be afraid to. For the longest time, I was afraid to trust myself to your parents. Not like I'm so fragile, but hey, even tough old cowboy Blades are allowed to feel it, sometimes."

But oh, he didn't give the impression of fragility in the slightest, not with his truest affinity reaching out for Xander's like this. It made the boy want to give his strongest, brightest smile, the one with all the freckles and teeth showing. So, he gave it, and got something oh so tired but brilliantly alive in return.

"All I hope you'll see is that there's not a trace of ether nor blood nor flesh nor fiber in me that could ever dream of doing anything to harm a hair on your head. It's a sappy gesture, I know, but it's what I've got. What do you say, Xander?"

He grinned. "Permission to give one corny line of my own?"

"Granted - as ever, you little scamp."

True to the descriptor, Xander just about scampered over to lie down next to his uncle in the grass, in mirrored positions of hands propped behind heads. From there, squinting at Minoth out of the near eye, he called out, "Mum, you've gotta try this!"

Xander's voice is intended to be a cross between Jack Ryder and Adam Howden. Likewise, Flora has a mix of Alix Wilton Regan and Kellie Bright. What can I say, I am but a humble Nintendo JRPG player!

Chapter 43: Shadow of the Hierophant - "Lost in thought, in search of vision, as the moon eclipsed the sun."

Perfection is theoretical and only theoretical. Rarely will you find a phenomenon wherein it's either true all the time or not true ever. But one can try, can they not?

"Alright, Flora."

"Alright, Mythra," the named woman returned agreeably. The Light Aegis had hands on hips and a studying look on her face. "What's this about?"

"You've got a pretty good memory, don't you?" Mythra started.

"I like to think so, yes."

"So you should remember as well as I do that time when we talked about boldness, and what it means to balance that part of your personality."

Flora furrowed her brow. "You're right, I do. You make it sound like a bad thing."

"Well..." Mythra crossed her arms, the studiousness turning into calculation. "It is considering you told me you admired me for it, then. What changed?"

"I don't know what you mean, Mythra," Flora answered her unsteadily.

"You said that if you couldn't be bold without tempering it, you probably just wouldn't be. But somewhere along the way in this past decade or so, something happened to you. I would have thought it'd be me turning myself into the group therapist as a coping mechanism for how much everybody seemed to hate me."

"But instead, I 'grew up,'" Mythra gave air-quotes, "into this oh-so-fine specimen of a Blade-woman, and you're just being a...a mom." She let the word escape her lips with a grimace. "Are you afraid your family's gonna turn on you if you put some pep back into your step?"

A fine thing for the group therapist to be psychoanalyzed! Flora scowled. "I've got pep, plenty of it. I-- I've got a knife! So there." She whipped it out as she said so, but the gesture soon petered out of its own snappishness.

"Ha ha. Very funny, the mom has hidden depths because she can stab you. C'mon, yeah, I'm saying it like it's a four-letter-word to emphasize my point, but even without that, my point still stands. I didn't have to give in to what people expected of me, and you shouldn't either."

Flora sighed. "You say that, but I'm the most normal out of anyone here. Doesn't it fall to me to be the calm head?"

Mythra shook her own head. "No way. That only gives the rest of us a stupid excuse to be more reckless. I know you're tough. They know you're tough. You don't need to change yourself for anyone."

Catching the turn in the conversation, Flora allowed herself a slight mischievous grin. "And what about you? Just like you said, you've changed."

The Aegis puffed out her chest and lifted her chin to the side. "Damn right. I changed for me, and only me. If that worked out well for the rest of you...well, just consider yourselves lucky."

Her conversation partner laughed softly. "I see what you mean. Still, I'm almost forty years old. I don't see that there's much time or purpose left for me to change myself."

Mythra scoffed. "What, you planning to slip on your own ice tomorrow and crack a hip? Who said you can't change right up until the end?"

"That's...rather overly and overtly poignant, coming from a Blade."

"Yeah. That's why I'm saying it. I'm gonna live a long, long time. Most Blades don't get to. Better make it a good one, right?" That single paradoxical sentiment alone immediately subdued the motive tone of their entire conversation.

"I know it's your destiny, or something like that, anyway, but all the same I'm sorry that that's something you have to contend with, Mythra," Flora said at last.

"Flora." Mythra reached out for her hands and clasped them tightly. "You and me, we're fucking awesome. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being a mom. Hell, they're fucking awesome in all their own ways - and you've got all of 'em, too. What I'm saying is that I know you've got a whole other side of you, and it'd be a real shame if you let it fade away just because you thought that was what was expected of you."

"Trust me," she finished, giving the fingers she was holding a final squeeze. "Girls gotta stick together, right mamacita?"

Flora raised a ruddy eyebrow with plenty of menace. "Don't sass me, young lady - Aegis or not."

Lifting her arms up and away in a placating gesture, Mythra sighed, adding, "Yeesh, released the beast, didn't I?"

The beast in question laughed in response, indeed freer now. "Don't tell me you didn't see that coming!"

"Nah. I decided a while ago not to use my Foresight on my family. Makes it harder to just...be if I'm using it. I mean, not like that's really how it works, anyway. I only get flashes, and usually when I'm least expecting them. Still, it's nice to be able to separate the fighting from what's important."

"And when you're fighting for what's important?"

Mythra grinned. "Then? I go all out." She paused then, having been trying to warm to her point but of a sudden discovering it anew. "Look, Flora..."

"Blades have this inborn instinct to protect their Driver, pretty much always at the cost of their own life, when you take it to the limit. It's an awesome thing, but it's a terrible one sometimes, too. Makes us enablers of horrible things - well, not that I really had that problem. But I've seen it happen plenty. As a human, you have the gift of, well, not having that, so you can choose who and what to protect."

"Healer Blades end up being especially prone to playing support - think about Haze. But Flora, you don't have to choose to protect anyone over yourself. Blades shouldn't have to either, and maybe it's on me to try to change that. I don't know. I'm just saying, remember not to lose yourself. You're important too - girl power or not."

Flora had been working her hands back and forth as she listened, bending the joints and cracking the knuckles in an attempt to make them feel loose and limber again. It wasn't working.

"You've gotten pretty wise, haven't you, Mythra?" she quipped distractedly.

"Are you kidding? I always was," Mythra answered her, preening.

"Is that so?" She was coming back into herself, now. "If that's really true, then I suppose we should thank goodness you didn't lose that. Just think of all those pearls of wisdom you used to bestow upon us...my my, what a shame it is that I can't seem to recall any."

Damn. Busted. "Does it count as sassing if I give you a hug?" Mythra asked sheepishly.

Flora shook her head and held out her arms in invitation. "Not at all, Mythra. I'm glad we had this little talk."

"Minoth, dear." "Yours, Flora." She had moved close to him and leaned on his arm without preface; the casual touch was bracing and soothing.

"You know, I am pretty keen to do what Xander said."

"What, start a brush fire with Malos's black flame?"

"Minoth!" Just as quickly and easily, Flora pushed herself off of him with perhaps-not-feined indignance.

"Oh, it's alright, Flora," he placated, "he was on pollen orbs when he said that."

"MINOTH-!" Before she could protest more, his arms had wrapped around her chest and pulled her small, fighting form back in against his own chest, which shook with his soft laughter. "Only kidding, only kidding, darling. What did you want to do?"

"Oh, well...rather nothing, now." Her scoff came with a violent blush.

"And why's that, now?" "Because it sounds like an innuendo, is why."

"Oh-ho, who's becoming like Addam now? Don't be a prude, Flora!"

Without looking, she reached up and flicked an index finger at the underside of his jaw. "Hey-!"

"I don't think it's being a prude to not want to say 'I want to feel your ether' offhand," she allowed quietly, after the bantering mood had dissipated.

"Oh, I see what you mean." She had expected him to tease more, but he didn't. His cadence was a little somber, as a matter of fact, a little morose.

Minoth's arms closed in tighter, somehow in a peculiarly prescient, pulsing embrace, as he lowered his head to rest perpendicular to hers on top of the very same crown. Flora could feel him sigh, just like you'd feel anyone's long-suffering breath if their ribcage was directly behind yours, but then...then she felt him sigh from the inside out.

Flora had never had a Blade, nor had any of her family. Bonded with, not had, she corrected herself sharply. She'd talked with Krogane and his fellow milita members - chatted, more like, never at length - and certainly she'd not seen them as less than people, but it was true that she'd seen them as separate from human. Human versus humanity, was the thing, it seemed.

And once again she was presented with the conundrum of Minoth, always a person, always so very human, but always something else too, and something else after the something else, half again and forward a step and sideways inside back around and goodness, he must be tired.

He was tired. Of course. She'd come to that conclusion on her own (she was very good at coming to conclusions), but that was the feeling flowing at her, into her, from behind. She felt an extra pressure above her head; he was kissing the top less in isolated gesture than extended posture, the combined form they made incredibly solid and strong. At least, it was, until Flora felt Minoth begin to make tiny, almost imperceptible tremors where he stood.

Her usual first instinct would be to say something, likely his name. Why were people so prone to saying names even when the situation didn't necessitate it? Because a name can connote love. In this situation it could also connote fear. Perhaps she should in fact communicate that. But she didn't, waiting for him to act on his own accord. Dimly, she thought oh, I'm supposed to channel it back, aren't I, but I don't know how to do that. Was he crying because she'd failed him in that way? Still, she kept quiet.

"I don't need a Driver," Minoth's broken musing came muffled against her hair. Was it a joke? A quip? They loved those, both of them, all three of them, all four of them, all six of them, and more. Was it a human thing to make jokes? It was a humane thing, definitely - well, when the circumstances called for it. Right now, Flora wasn't so sure. It sounded serious; she didn't want to joke. And yet, she didn't scold him for it, either.

The silence continued unbroken. She thought she could make out Malos watching them from over by the creek. Even if there was an affinity line glowing between them, it wouldn't be visible from anywhere but very close up at a very clear side angle. They were alone, and they were safe. She tried to parse out more of the ether.

It was a warm deep purple shot through with far warmer blisters of crackling gold. Beautiful, of course. If it wasn't so tired, she imagined it would be dancing, intelligent and handsome and snappy, not particularly elegant or graceful as an academic or a professional might term it but beautiful to watch nonetheless. The more she watched its limp movements, the more the dampened flair weighed on her soul. Could she prop it up, here, give a rallying cry, there?

When you got chest pains (and she did, because she was older now, of course), the tiny gasping knives came lancing in, and you tried to shove them out, only you were fairly well arrested between them, and thus couldn't. Maybe now the trick was to embody that feeling, but in which direction, from what starting basis? Flora turned it around in her mind for a moment, imagining shapes and angles and axes, but oh, that was entirely too stiff and cerebral, even or perhaps especially for their clever, clever Minoth.

He'd given no caveat, not physical nor emotional. With Xander it had been "here is my heart, I want you to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm not hiding anything from you," but to Flora it was given that "you are already there, more or less, and I could not hide from you even if I wanted to, and I know that you know this." The thought was very, very sobering. How long had it been like this? Xander hadn't seemed to notice this, hadn't seemed like it was there to notice, and they weren't oblivious, not any of them. Why did he weep for showing her his Core?

She pushed out, and he shuddered in, clinging to her like the storm might cling to port - it wouldn't, it wouldn't, of course it wouldn't, and yet he did, and their synthesis was beautiful. That Minoth could still give the ether like this, even misshapen, perhaps more misaligned, as the composition of his Core was, was beautiful (he felt this, not she; she somehow didn't think on it).

"I don't need a Driver," he said again, louder this time. She dug her heels into the ground and pressed her shoulders back into his chest. A third time, "I don't need a Driver." The cadences were not iterative, they followed no bearing. Towards an end of persuasion, they wouldn't serve much good - repetition had to be a device employed with purpose, otherwise it was just capricious chance whether or not the recurrence heard would really, truly sound.

"I don't need a Driver!" Flora knew to speak now. "Then what do you need, Minoth?"

He was too much a man, too proud, like that very bull, to wail against her, but the ether screamed and roiled. She watched it, cupped it, caressed it, cared for it. "I need Addam," he sobbed, because everybody needs people, Blade or Driver or both or neither, and Addam was his person, "I need you." Somehow in this whole mess she'd forgotten to hold his hands where they were convolved around her, and it felt like the bitterest failing in the world.

Now she took the hands and kissed the palms, and they were clumsy and suffocating about her nose, but she was trying to prod him to think, think, what am I thinking, you clever darling, what am I knowing, you dearest love, I think I am knowing you and I want you to know-!

"Flora, dear." It was whisper quiet. "Yours, Minoth." Even softer, the barest kiss of a sound.

"Minoth!" Mythra's voice was carried like a gong blooming over the valley as she called to them. "Quit necking and give us a hand here!" Well, so much for that, huh?

Flora twisted out of Minoth's grasp without a trace of reluctance and thrust a questioning hand to his holsters. "You want to-?"

"What, you think I can't handle it? I've still got some fight left in me, my good sir - my best sir!"

He laughed the remaining tears away. "Careful there, Flora, we can't let Xander know his crown has slipped." Piranhaxes in the creek were nothing compared to a mama bear on the prowl, and they advanced over the hill with switchblade and gunknives drawn.

Malos had dropped a handful of Grimdark Crabs into the water by accident, it appeared, and in Xander's haste to recover their provisions he'd nearly gotten bitten by the first of the swarm. Together, the five of them picked off enough to slow the frenzy (over what? seven or eight tiny crabs?), but none of them used an element all that well-suited to tackling this aquatic horde.

"This calls for something flashy, Flora," Minoth bellowed over the splashing fray. "You ready?"

"As long as you are!" she cried from the other side of the stream. In an instant, Minoth had tossed her one of his weapons, and they made a surprisingly elegant and streamlined pincer attack on the teeming throng of frenetic fish before casting them away with a final icy strike.

Creek cleared, Flora made a careful bound back over it to re-holster the gun and lean her heaving breaths on a very strong, very solid, very alive cowboy.

"Mythra?"

"Yeah?"

"We weren't necking."

Their Level IV Special is called Apoyatura, and its bonus effect trigger is attacking from the side. Xander's is Címbalo, and it has a critical up bonus. At least, that's what my spreadsheet says, but it may be in need of an overhaul...

wahoo

Chapter 44: Robbery, Assault and Battery - "You've done me wrong, it's the same old song! Forever, forever."

A poem should never be a tourniquet
You have to let the blood go where it wants

-- Hera Lindsay Bird, "Speech Time"

One early morning, unmarked for any other reason, Minoth awoke to streaks of silver parting his vision, intermingled with the brown. Even if he had been dreaming about Addam, there was no rhyme or reason to a shape like this. Eh, blame it on sleep-filled eyes.

Flora stirred next to him, getting used as she was to sleeping lighter and more in tune with her companions. Once one eye snapped open, the other quickly followed as she took in the mass of hair twirled in a haphazard, gravity-defying tangle from scalp to crown.

"Minoth! ...you've gone gray."

He laughed, his own eyes half-closed again as he tried to chase a few more winks and ignore the strange sight. "Trying to prank me when I'm half asleep? Low blow, Flora."

She pushed herself up on her hands and, once steady, smacked the general area of his ear (it was hidden, of course, by his unwieldy mop of hair).

"Architect have mercy! Lethal weapons, those hands of yours are." But, he heaved up onto his back, then sat up and rolled chest, shoulders, neck, elbows, everything - and most, if not all, of the joints creaked menacingly.

It was funny, of course, such a joke, ha ha ha, but still... "What does this mean?" Flora asked quietly. "Are you...is this the same as it was before?"

Minoth was pensive as he grasped a strand to pull it down in front of his eyes, which strained uncomfortably upwards into the sockets to get a clear view. "I don't see how it could be," he remarked dryly, tone running counter to his accidentally comical face. "Random skin grafts and blood transfusions are a far cry from the ritual, arcane, and carnal alike."

Flora winced despite herself. She'd never heard the details of the procedure; Addam, uncharacteristically, had always refused to relate any of them to her, and she suspected that he knew only a shadow of the real truth anyway. Still, it brought to mind the same descriptor they'd always used: grisly, and unfeeling, and wrong. One couldn't blow it out of proportion, certainly - did it really count as torture if it wasn't done with the intent of harming, if the suject had volunteered for it?

Minoth was just one Blade in a population of hundreds, maybe thousands. They all had to grapple with the same fiendish mortality and morality thereof. They hadn't all had to endure what he had, but the general milieu of his life hadn't been so bad, she rather thought.

Well, but that didn't matter. He was theirs, and so the hurt, the indignity, the ever-raw scars that were there, of course they were there, still stung like hell and probably always would, even after they'd accomplished their current goal or gotten caught trying.

He caught her gaze as she stared stubbornly at the ground. "Addam and I used to say maybe I should thank him, or not. There's no 'or' here. I feel, as much as I hate to say it, more alive than I've ever been. This doesn't mean that I'm dying."

"But doesn't it?" Flora asked distractedly. "That's what happens to humans when they get old, when their vitality dies away."

Ah, here it was, her one flaw, and the one that Xander had, too. "You've got tunnel vision, Flora. Are you forgetting the appearance of your late husband already?"

"What? I, well, of course not, but-- Oh. Oh." She grinned without trying, a breathy laugh issuing from parted teeth and lips. "Okay, I can believe that."

"He was as alive as the best of us, if not a healthy shade more."

When Flora finally looked up into Minoth's face, she almost giggled again at the sight: he was trying desperately, and failing in equal measure, to refasten the minute red wrap that tied in their silly, silly homage to their beloved prince. She reached up to help him, of course, masking her worry in furrowed brow of concentration, though her words belied it.

"I can't have you dying on me too, you know." And he laughed and brushed a lock of her own hair behind her ear and then, tossing aside her fruitless little efforts, hugged her to him as had so quickly become their way. "Calm yourself, Flora. I'm going gray, not going dark!"

"So. How're we gonna get out of here?" A valid question from Mythra, but an exasperating one, because it bore thinking about.

"We don't have a sassy-ass dragon around to bum us a ride, and there's definitely no way we can take one of our Artifices." She hadn't said "my" or even "mine or Malos's" - Addam would have been so proud.

"There's got to be some Titan ship captain willing to take us to Indol," Minoth answered confidently. "If we give them the right sum of money, including the amount with which to get them to keep mum."

"Two humans, a full-throttle Flesh Eater, and the fucking Aegises? We've gotta be way more undercover than that, bucko," Malos countered him.

"Your suggestion?"

"A merchant family displaced from Torna."

Minoth squinted disbelievingly at the Dark Aegis. "That's what we are, if you swap 'merchant' for 'farmer' anyway. What's your angle?"

Mythra rolled her eyes and waved a hand in front of her forehead. "He's not getting it, Malos. Don't you remember that whole fiasco about Addam's eyes? Look around. No way you and Flora together would pass as Xander's parents." The Origos, Minoth included, bristled, but there was no denying that she was right.

Oh, hell. This was going to be a trip and a half.

"Mythra," Minoth started slowly, theatrically. "Y-yeah?" He had put her sufficiently ill at ease with his calculating look, and it was honestly not unamusing. "You've got golden eyes, haven't you?"

"Well yeah, I-- Wait a minute! I'm gonna have to pretend to be married to you?!"

"Unless you think we'd do better having you paired with Flora?"

Mythra crossed her arms and looked away, muttering something indiscernible, and she was still for all intents and purposes Addam's pseudo-teenaged and uber-rebellious charge, after all. "Fine, fine. But you better not pull anything!" she demanded, wheeling around and poking a finger up into Minoth's face.

He shook his head, huffing a laugh. "I'd rather have Flora, and you know that."

"Oh yeah?" Mythra was smirking now, somehow so quickly well over her little outburst. "I'm cute as hell, so you should count yourself lucky to even be fake married to me."

"Flora's cuter," Minoth deadpanned back, and the named woman blushed and pressed a weak hand to his arm.

And speaking of Xander's somewhat erstwhile mother... "What about you, our flower girl?"

"What about me? I'll be an aide or some such, right?"

"That's one option, or you could be a daughter."

"Wait, wait, wait." Now it was Xander's turn to pipe in. "Mythra's gonna be my mother, and Mum's gonna be my sister? This is starting to get weird." The not-so-subtle indignity of Minoth quite literally acting as his father went unspoken.

The Flesh Eater sighed. "Ideally we'd keep everybody as close as possible, which means that yes, your mother's going to have to act as your sister."

"And what about Malos?"

"Bodyguard duty," Minoth pronounced before any further rejoinder could issue from the Dark Aegis. "He is, as ever, our beloved wildcard."

"Oh, sure. Thanks for that, Dad," Malos sneered, clapping the very accidentally parental and indeed paternal one on the back.

"Sure, sure, and sure. Enough gushing. It's making me itch."

"Is not, dear," came the over-pointed retort from Mythra as they made for the waiting ship.

"Okay, maybe it's not," he allowed, "but that certainly is."

Smirking, she looped an arm about his elbow and jerked him to walk in step with her. "Just roll with it, my dude. Save your impatience for the man in charge."

Flora and Xander locked grip of hands as well, and Malos followed behind with gait and gaze set. The man in charge...Addam should be in front. Minoth considered whispering the thought to Mythra, but as the greatsword swung and sparked against his ether deposits, he thought better of it. Leave it until later. Save your focus, too.

They made it onto Indol quickly, easily. Too easily. That fine merchant family milled in the square for just enough quiet moments, and then Minoth motioned under fortunate blanket of cloak at the point where they should start to infiltrate.

In without retribution, leaving off members one by one to a shop here, a study there, a library...that same library. A library is somewhere you go to gain knowledge, to become enlightened, to broaden your horizons. Huh. Yet back here he was, somehow till with no Driver, not truly, and once Flora squeezed his hand and left off, he was then quite simply just as alone as he ever had been.

The practiced step with which he walked these halls was no looser, no more comfortable; the tension of now was not just an echo but a reflection of the tension of then. Nobody's master but my own, and mastered by nobody. In total, I couldn't, can't, have mattered much, he thought, this story wasn't meant to be mine. Yet the very Aegises weight, wait and await my mediated murder as friends, companions, family.

Grand, grander. Grandiose. Grandeur by pure delusion. This place stinks, this place well and truly stinks. If I had done something, if I had killed him then, this wouldn't be happening now, Torna wouldn't be sunk and Addam wouldn't be dead and-- And Mythra and Malos wouldn't ever have been alive. Well, maybe. Maybe not. And is it on me? Was it on me?

(Friends, companions, family. No, in truth, he wasn't prepared to die here. He had no intention of doing so - there were greater things. Oh, there were greater things.)

Praetor's chambers now. Pass through a literal curtain, begin scene. His back turned, of course. Of course. Too easy, too poetic, too...

"Adotolus? Is that you?"

The voice, the same voice, so lazy and low yet so deep and directed. Sickening. Why is it you who continue to get everything you want? Because your mother was taken from you. The motivation straightforward, even classic. You cannot be blamed. Can you be blamed?

Nihilism, your nihilism. Death, destruction, mass extinction, real and effected and only barely diverted, because no one ever bothered to convince a traumatized child that there was good left in the world. And yet if his mother was even lovable in the least she must have seen the good herself, must have loved her son, must have given him the barest seeds that he needed.

It is not on the abused, the targets, to take the operative distance and make use of it. Let them feel their own guilt, do not cast them as failures, let them pick up their pieces and be seen as sembled. And you, Amalthus. Let you be seen, if only now, as one who has not and has never risen, will never rise to the occasions that you caused. You were given enough chances, and to perversest pales and depths you persevered. Your act ends, your act ends, your act ends. We've no more need of this.

Minoth stood tall above the habit and miter. "Who are they? Your latest pawn?" Above the habit. Above measure. Who even are you, anymore?

"Ah. The released returns. Indeed, you are just as much of a lowlife as Zettar pronounced you to be, even all those years ago."

Oh, his patience was whittled thin, by the very physicalitied example of his stance and standing of course it was. "Look at me. Look at me!"

Amalthus turned, train flourishing with a revolting puff of air, and he looked. Intrigued, he lifted an eyebrow and grasping hand towards the pink of the Core. "Tainted, as ever. Still an interesting specimen, Minoth."

How he hated the way his name was dripped off that dry, derisive tongue. "Don't you touch my Core," Minoth growled, thrusting a dagger with deadly precision to just within throat-slitting distance.

And yet, Amalthus didn't look scared in the least.

"Your petty anger is as dust in the wind compared to my dread duty under the Architect." He struck an unexpectedly strong arm to cross with Minoth's, jerking the dagger away in the perfect calculated arc so as to avoid even the slightest incision. "How dare you, a Blade and an impure one at that, defy me and threaten my life? Just who do you think you are?"

The more the stale Praetorium air invaded his mind, the more Minoth wanted to draw his greatsword and fell the Praetor where he stood.

"You're really going to stand there and call me impure?" His voice flared from a deadly whisper to an apoplectic shout. "You made me this way! It was your foul experiment!"

Amalthus was yet cold. "Your experiment was a failure, as you well know. You did not show any of the promise we had expected. You are useless, to me and to this world. Now that you've made me think about it, I tire of your existence."

Suddenly, Minoth remembered what his rage had made him forget. "I am not a tool. I'm a man with just as much right to live as you do. And I'm not afraid of you. You have no duty under the Architect, but I do."

Amalthus's eyes narrowed. "So. Not only are you an abomination, you are a heretic." His sneering speech was stopped by the presence of a much larger blade at his throat, one that couldn't be averted with a careless shove.

"Blades live to love and honor their Driver and their bond, as partners and as equals. You never did that for me, and I cared about you for far too long. My Driver was a good man, but you killed that admirable spirit. You don't even deserve my mercy."

So saying, Minoth drove the greatsword hilt-first down and around Amalthus's collar, slicing through disgustingly expensive fabric with graceless impunity. The severed tendons and cracked bones beneath lay shrouded within the robes as the Indoline's body slumped to the floor. The hook? It was long, long gone.

He wasn't empty, he wasn't full. He wasn't buoyed up; he wasn't depressed down. Mireille's clay bell: just a little thing, such a little thing, kept safe for far longer than anyone would have expected, long after it should have simply crumbled away, all because someone had taken the care to make sure it was kept safe. He'd taken it once to ward off evil and invite happiness. He didn't need it anymore now.

Oh, that sweet, sweet catharsis. Chekhov's clay bell, anyone?

Chapter 45: Burning Rope - "But keep in mind, don't live today for tomorrow, like you were immortal."

Intelligent men, intelligent fighters. They tried to cut corners, he tried to cut miters. Maybe I dodged a bullet...but maybe I wanted it to put me out of my misery.

Minoth left the innermost maze of the sanctum just as smoothly, swiftly as he'd entered. A body dead on the floor that he'd left lying, hadn't smited away like he knew in the back of his mind he was capable of doing. Really, what else had he killed, what else had any of them killed?

He Malos, and Malos him. I'm not like you. Laugh it off, Minoth. He found Flora still in the library, affected a conversational face to pull her away from the monk transfixed on their repartee, and squeezed her hand with the tritely shaking his as they walked.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked brightly, and the difference of their heights was merely an additive, benitive boon in the spirit of how young and devoted she seemed, for all the pretty fille she had to act.

"I found it, Flora. Let's go." It, not him. What, not who. What he'd found and what he'd left were a whirring conglomeration. Onward they walked. Xander and Mythra in the courtyard, Malos down in the plaza. Take a head count, calm down. You're out, you're free, there is nothing left here.

But no, Malos wasn't there. That was...a different kind of nothing.

"What was that monk's name?" Minoth asked Flora, part to pass the time and part to pass the anxiety. No, bad question. Be more direct. Be more theatrical. "Was his name Adotolus?"

She pursed her lips, nodded. "I don't quite want to know why you know that. Should we be walking faster, do you think?"

"I think a lot of things. Don't quite like any of them." He took a deep breath. "Malos knows his way around here. Not as well as I learned it, but still pretty freakily well. He may have gone for a...diversion."

You weren't thinking "die you fuck"? No, I wasn't. But you...you were. You are. And you're doing something dangerous right now. Architect's sake, Malos, why are you always doing something dangerous?

Thudding bootsteps brought the danger here and real. Malos, of course, and...Mikhail? He was wearing armor fashioned after Jin's and Malos's, and that wasn't necessarily strange, but he was hunched as his gloved fingers clenched into Malos's palm, so it was hard to observe the full scope and detail.

"Found him in the laboratory. Figured it was worth a check, right? Oh, he didn't stop. He never stopped."

No time to ask, but there had to be a reason Mikhail, bright blond but cagey and all of shored-up twenty-five, would by this time be hanging onto anybody, even Jin but let alone Malos, for such dear and dearth of life.

"If there's fighting, no ether links, got it Xander?"

Xander frowned, but muttered an obliging "Got it" as Malos guided Mikhail to walk with him before moving to confer with Mythra.

"Are you okay, Mik?" The desperate fingers gripped tighter. "Can you stand up straight?"

Malos's eyes flared violet back towards them. "Xander, just keep walking. No questions."

"But he's-" "Keep. Walking."

He was no subservient Blade just as Xander was no commandeering Driver. Neither of them were quite adults, then, were they.

Xander wanted to ask where was Lora, Jin and Haze, were they alright, where had they gotten to, could they even be okay if Mik was here and in this state, but even beyond Malos's deadpan insistence of a silencing, he couldn't bring himself to do it, because those were the questions his father would ask, would have asked, damn it, and...his heart panged, and he locked his jaw shut.

With a swiftness quite unlike him, Malos finished his piece with Mythra and dropped to the back of the group again. She was blinking fast, processing the information and gritting her teeth.

"Everything alright back there?" Minoth whispered, and caught the shake of her head out of the corner of his eye. Alright then. Reluctantly, he untwined his fingers from Flora's and gently shooed her back to take point at Xander's free side. Mythra took her place in exchange, and her grip held all of death.

"Blade Eater," she muttered without moving her lips, and Minoth hated how instantly he understood. "How much?"

"The whole thing. It's not sitting right with him, but it's more sitting than standing."

"Can we take him with us, do you think?"

"I don't know. I heard the pilot talking about changing shifts for the empty cabin on the way back. Depends if he goes through with it, but they might notice an extra body either way."

"You there!" Adotolus. Oh, and friends. Walking slowly, almost casually, but definitely on the prowl for something. Great.

Minoth affected his finest, blandest, most absolutely unassuming accent as he steered the group into a turnabout. "Us? Did you want something, good sir?"

"I think you must be mistaken," came the conciliatory yet ostensibly threatening simper. "That boy is not a member of your family. Were you looking for someone else?"

Before Minoth could answer, Malos stepped forward to give his own heartfelt defiance. "No, I think it's you who are mistaken. He is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a member of our family. Now, can I help you with anything else?"

Adotolus's sneer steeled. "Don't lie to me, Ardainian scum." Ardainian? Well, if you had to pick a nation, from the neck up. One supposes. "You know you're stealing."

Something awful burned in Mythra's throat. No, she hadn't been there when Lora and Jin had first picked up Mikhail, but she knew the situation well. He had been sold as a slave from village to village, kingdom to kingdom, Titan to Titan. To speak of stealing any human being, even any Blade, but especially this one...her hand was too small to crush Minoth's, but it tried its damnedest anyway.

"Stealing?" Malos taunted. "Like you stole me?"

Oh. Shit. Fuck. No, no, no. Not this. Not now.

Flora thought quickly. "Logan, don't-" Malos parsed the hurriedly produced alternate moniker with ease, wasn't distracted in the least, and didn't stop his next motion for a second. Cloak down, ripped open as much as it was pulled, cross-shaped Core on full display.

Adotolus muttered a curse even as he gave a disgustingly pleased snakelike smile. "So the Aegis is amongst us once again. Both of them, even. How noble of you to deign to reveal your presence, o mighty one. Now that you're here, of course you'll have to do us the respect of staying."

"I don't have to do a fucking thing for you." So saying, Malos drove a violent boot into the lead monk's stomach, hefted Mikhail over his shoulder, and started running. They all did, for a few anxious paces, before Minoth's mind began to rumble, pitch, and turn, even cave, down and in on itself.

This was it. His chance to pay back in spades what they'd sacrificed for him, the danger of the World Tree and definitely the danger of stepping foot on Indol of all places for his fun little personal homicide project. For all the patience in his self-thwarted, dumb-repressed struggles, for the way he'd taken Addam as a prop to keep himself alive, for the way he was a chain around their necks still, heavy and lumbering and disbelonging and wrong.

No, he knew it wasn't right, he knew it wasn't like that. But who are you going to believe, when you're being rushed down by people who can and will string you up by your thumbs, and have done so before, in a manner of speaking? Not the people you love, and not the people you hate. Only yourself, because yourself is both. A funny thing, that.

Head on straight, Minoth. Get in the director's chair. The captain goes down with the ship. You know where you are, and all too fucking well, so why don't you use it, for fucking once?

Quick, broad hand shoved Mythra to the side and behind. The other shot to the cape and bared fuschia Core with devilish, damnable impunity. They had to see it. They had to take the bait of the distraction. Architect, let his fucked-up state, past or present, be useful for something, anything. For. Fucking. Once.

And it worked. Their thundering steps faltered, considering this new possibility. Minoth didn't stop for long to gauge the fullness of their intrigue. There's the hook, give me line and make it sinker.

"There's a back alley around the other side of the plaza, it leads down to the port."

"But-" "Mythra, go!" The fresh reinforcement squadron of warrior monks was approaching all too fast.

Flora's frantic glance backward as Xander picked her up and darted after Mythra's lead was horrified, heartbroken. Everything always so in control when she got it handled, everything if not neat and calm then at least ditches dug in sense and sortitude. Nothing done by the seat of your pants without good reason. Without good reason.

If Minoth wasn't feeling so wholly stranded himself, he would have blown her a kiss. One lost husband is better than two, and all that. How about don't lose the children, the young ones, the ones who are pure and whole and who actually matter? And how about don't lose you, my dear? Can't have you dying on me too. Oh, hell.

This was the fucking goddamn stupidest piece of shit thing he'd ever done, and not because the maneuver was intellectually lacking, but because he the ever-staunch cowboy had fucking sacrificed his life back into the hands of his very abusers for his family, his fucking family. He was in love and he felt immense hatred, he was floating in the Cloud Sea and his heart had been punched clean through his chest, he wanted to kick the monks in the face and he wanted them to cut his head off. God. Architect. Addam. Anyone.

"Can you goddamned lizards please just fucking chloroform me already?"

Back alley did indeed lead down to the port. Minoth may have given them a fair bit of bait-and-switch, but he hadn't tried any wool-pulling bullshit to confuse assumed levels of intelligence or any such nonsense. Herrings red, Cores pink and violet and teal and oh, Mikhail's...blue. Fan-shaped. Beautiful, except that it was fucking ugly by fucking definition.

It was a swearing kind of mood, you see.

They were holding hands like a kindergarten group on a string now, Mythra followed by Flora with Mikhail in the middle, then Xander, then Malos. Roughly the same structure as when Minoth had been there, only not. They reached an empty awning and regrouped into a ring.

"You okay now, Mik?" Xander asked gently. Something seemed to tick itself off in the older boy's mind then, and he straightened up with a shudder.

"Yeah, I'm okay. A little angry, but you know. I'm okay." He stretched, wincing as the Core's setting must have undulated underneath his armor. "This thing hurts like hell."

Hurts like hell. The same thing Minoth had said when he'd arrived before them with Addam's heart newly consumed. Stop thinking about him, wouldn't you? But it couldn't be helped.

Flora bit her lip, considering something. "I think, for now, we should skedaddle ourselves off of here."

"For now," Mythra agreed grimly. "But we're coming back."

Malos rolled his neck and worked his jaw. "How did you get here, Mik?"

Mikhail mirrored his posture and leaned back against the wall. Almost sassy, he was. Good for him? Maybe.

"When fuckface Amalthus here bombed Torna, Lora, Jin, Haze, and the kids all fled to Gormott. I got separated from them, though, and it seems like the Indoline were running trick evacuation ships. I got taken here instead, and after a while of keeping us in the dark, they took me out and shoved this thing in my chest. Assholes."

"Assholes, indeed," Flora murmured. She met the array of shocked glances with a wretchedly tired quirk of eyebrow and purse of lips. "I said what I said."

"Well..." Xander started, "it doesn't seem like it'll do you much good to keep going with us. If you can get on a trade ship back to Gormott, then hopefully you can find them safe, and somewhere safe for yourself to rest. Or see about getting that Core removed, I guess."

Mikhail shook his head dolefully. "Too late for that, Xander. It's all but stuck in now."

"At least Amalthus is dead," Mythra provided, and the sentiment was indeed at least somewhat helpful: Mikhail perked up at the mention.

"Oh really? Nice. Give me five on that, Myth."

"Can you not?" Down went the waiting hand.

"Yeah, I can...I can not. Sheesh. Let a guy be happy about something, for once." For once.

Sighing an almost violent breath, Flora clapped her hands in front of her, then clapped them to her forehead, breathed in, breathed out...she had an agitation. Too much to describe there.

"Okay. Everyone, to the port. We'll find a ship to Gormott for Mikhail, and if we don't, then he'll just have to come with us back to Spessia, or Mor Ardain, or Uraya."

She sighed again. "I suppose that's all the options now, isn't it."

"Chin up, Flora," Mythra prodded. "We can do this. We're going to do this. C'mon guys, did you hear her? To the port!"

And what did they find there but, indeed, a ship bound back for Gormott that very afternoon. The captain or pilot was nowhere in sight, but there was a cargo hand shuffling crates on the deck.

"Hey, catboy."

Catboy...? Malos gave Mikhail a wild look. "What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to get the monks called on us?"

"Relax, Malos," Mikhail returned with a placating hand, suprisingly accepted, on the Dark Aegis's shoulder, behind the pauldron. "I know what I'm doing."

He turned to face the end of the dock again. "Ahoy out there!"

Said catboy turned himelf, just as confused, then squinted over at them with hands on his hips. His incredulity only grew by the second.

"Wait...Mik?"

It was easy as breathing to flash a million-watt grin at his best friend. "I'm your man, Milton. Say - you ever thought about being a Driver?"

"A Driver? Mik, what are you- wait, all you guys? What's going on? Where's Addam? And-- Yeah, if you're all here, then where's Minoth?"

"No time, Milton," Xander called, voice hitching, as they pushed Mikhail to make the move onto the ship. Milton caught his flailing arms and pulled him in for a hug, but just as soon pulled back at the blunt intrusion of the Core.

"What's...? Titan's foot." He shook his head. "I'll get you a cloak."

Before ushering Mikhail into the cabin with arm tight around his shoulder, he made one final call to the troupe yet on mainland: "You folks sure travel in strange company, you know that?"

Mythra grimaced. "Come on, guys. Let's get outta here so we can get back here tomorrow and retrieve our strangest one of the bunch."

They're boyfriends, your honor, even if it's entirely too pat and cliché.

Chapter 46: Tonight, Tonight, Tonight - "You keep telling me I've got everything, you say I've got everything I want!"

One might imagine that the creator said to his children, "If I can teach you to be bold, that's a wonderful thing."
But some of the children cried back, "I want to be my own person. I want to be a real person."
And the creator in his forlorn, misshapen love said, "Oh but darling, aren't you?"

^^ That's my original poem/prose, but I later happened upon something literally very similar but figuratively quite different:

Will I be something?
Am I something?
And the answer comes:
You already are.
You always were.
And you still have time to be.

-- Anis Mojgani, "Here Am I" [paraphrase not mine; anonymous/unknown]

They had him down in an interrogation room, as he suspected might be routine. Tied him up in a chair in the middle of the room, some subversive technology keeping him from a stable ether flow and heightened senses of the area, even in the dark. Cliché. Fucking cliché.

For the preponderance of the time, the conversation, if you could call it that, consisted of boredly inquisitive jabs directed at his Core, at the advancement of his transformation and the strength of his additional powers, if any. They didn't know, of course, that he was, in some sense, a different Minoth, a different Flesh Eater than had occupied what was likely this very room those some-score-odd years ago. (He'd rather blocked it out, so no, he couldn't quite say if this was the place or not.)

For all he knew, the way he was then wasn't much different from anything they'd been coming up with in recent years. The gray hair, the full taint, certainly the scar, which this contingent wouldn't have been around long enough (or perhaps cared enough) to remember beyond his standard-issue reputation.

Laundry lists, he gave them, of aches and aberrations he'd felt, but all staved away from the principal object of what he knew was different, what he knew was volatile and, yes, powerful. Just so long as they didn't actually touch and tamper with his Core, he'd be safe, and they didn't seem to intend to do that any time soon. A little indolent, they were. Of course.

This he could handle. This he would say was one hundred percent worth it, for them getting out alive. They'd cast aside care about the company he traveled in, and it wasn't as if there was anything he could do to stop power-hungry people from lusting after what the Aegises had and could give, even bestow. He'd figure out a way to escape to the outside once again soon enough, and then he'd...jump in the Cloud Sea and start swimming, probably. A fitting end for the failed experiment.

But, then, the questions began to take a turn. Not even a turn, a right angle, an absolute immediacy of change. "Where is the Aegis's Driver?"

This? Fucking this? "Th-- Why do you want to know?"

He'd been about to give up the crucial information that both of the Aegises' original Drivers were dead, and they still alive, so that there'd be no rout of bloodlust brought down upon Xander as Malos's current Driver (to say nothing of Mythra's situation), but realized just in time that in doing so he would also reveal that they knew that Amalthus was dead. And that...perhaps the monks didn't even know that yet.

This was the part, the crucial part, where he'd be getting smashed in the jaw and spitting up blood, cracking his neck with vicious impunity and using the fiercest driving ire of his rogue-not-a-rogue face to let them know that he wouldn't be beaten down, not for all as long or longer than as they wanted to beat him up.

It was also the part where he'd suddenly feel a familiar presence, something bright and determined, something righteously angry and spiritedly alive, because he couldn't help how much he still hated this place and the way his receptors would always mark it drab, desperate, despairing, the handwaved signature of the pittancest period of his life.

The monks weren't dead men walking, certainly not anymore than he was at this very moment, and Amalthus himself was dead, hatred finally bled full out and dimmed-out hope perhaps yet rerising, yet it was almost confounding how much of an utter relief it was to see them drop away like not maggots but flies, Malos and Mythra on them with truly blinding speed and blighting fury.

"How did you find me?" Minoth breathed, an incredulous grin tugging his lips into some haphazard and likely wholly undignified shape.

"We're your Drivers, right?" Xander said with a tinge of the same relief as he stood watchful at his mother's back. "It's our job to know."

Said second Driver was currently occupied working more mercilessly than meticulously at the braided cables trapping his wrists and tamping his ether flow.

"No big trick for your grand entrance, huh?" Minoth remarked in as casual a tone as he could manage. What more was there to this scene? It, like everything else, seemed entirely too neat, too clean, too easy. Had to be something.

Well, but there was something. The cables fell away, his chest sagged, and as soon as he so much as blinked in Xander's direction, the urge to form a link saw itself to fruition, and the sight of the ceiling of the laboratory was blotted out wholesale by the silhouette of his nephew rounding the chair and practically pouncing on him.

He could feel Flora's forehead bent against his forearms as she yet knelt on the cold tile floor. She was there. They were here. And he himself... "Hey, it's okay. I'm here. Ain't going anywhere."

"Fucking liar," Xander mumbled into his shoulder. "You have got to stop doing this."

You let me? No, you didn't. If you had known of course you wouldn't have. You care too much? No, you don't. That's a you problem, Minoth. He decided he'd stow the possibility of a snappy rejoinder. Didn't always need one.

Mythra made a weak wrist-tapping motion as she stood near the threshold, her signal that they hadn't, you know, fucking decimated the rest of the place in their quest to get down here and that their path out still had the potential to be fraught. Fine enough. He'd follow the script, now.

Eventually, Xander pulled himself back, and swore again at the sight. "Architect, Uncle Minoth, you look a wreck."

He tried to grin facetiousness, but indeed, there was something yet a little messed-up with his face, and it hurt to try. "Don't I perpetually? Isn't that my whole aesthetic?"

"Oh, you know it, pretty boy," Malos called from a few paces back.

"Save it, Malos. Trying to have a moment here." But anyway.

Task completed and steadying breaths taken, Flora straightened up, walked in front of Minoth, moistened the tip of her index finger, and rubbed away the crusting fluids at the corners of his mouth. "You know, I've had just about enough of your big tricks. We're getting out of here before you try any others."

Brisk as ever! "Yes, dear." And they were about to do it, Aegises on mark for the mad dash, when she became distracted by another sign of the stringence of the situation below the bound-up bony parts as he worked his shoulders in their sockets and brought his arms up to rest in front of him once more.

"Minoth, what have I told you? How will you ever write for us again with your hands all bashed up?"

How, indeed? It wasn't as if he'd intended to get himself all in a mess. Hadn't intended, couldn't have foreseen...any of this.

"Flora, it's nothing. Just punching some dickheads in the face, as you do."

"Oh, of course. As you do." And then she pulled his knuckles close to her own face without asking and kissed every faintest bruise. As you do.

"Flora...I'm not exactly in the right state to princess carry you out of here, want though I might have to always be able to do that."

She smiled tightly, the haunt of a grimace yet lurking. "So? I couldn't ever do that for you, so it's all equal. Come on now."

"Mythra, Malos, can you check my Core? Been bugging me ever since...since Indol."

Back at the refugee camp, they were, and hopefully not needing to take any further refuge any time soon.

"Sure thing," Mythra answered him as she and her brother laid careful hands on the glowing Core.

"Ow-!" Malos jerked his hand back, and Mythra smirked. "'S what you get for not wearing gloves."

"Yeah, whatever..." He steeled himself for the potent ether and tried his hand again. The Aegis siblings wore matching expressions of concentration, then coordinated alternating narrowings and widenings of eyes.

"Minoth, this is..." "Your ether flow is..." Mythra finally looked up at Minoth. "In a word, incredibly fucky."

"That's two words," the Flesh Eater deadpanned back, and Mythra would have socked him in the jaw if she wasn't afraid he'd explode, honestly.

"Dude, work with me here. Can you try releasing a little energy?"

"What, like jumping jacks?"

Malos smacked the side of his arm. "No, asshole, some ether energy!"

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Minoth sighed. "You two give me a headache."

"Will you just do it already?"

He sighed ever more dramatically, but held out an aimless palm and made a vague effort to materialize an ether cloud there. Just as it sparked into existence, he staggered back.

"Don't remember giving you the go-ahead on pollen orbs in my canteen today, Malos," he snapped with an annoyed glance.

Malos's response was unexpectedly measured. "I didn't do shit. What are you talking about?"

"I saw Addam just now."

Mythra crossed her arms and studied him. "What, and you don't do that fifty times a day whenever you get a spare moment?" If he wasn't so wigged out, Minoth would have chuckled fondly at that astute observation.

"I saw him without the torso wounds. Usually have a pretty hard time doing that without...hallucinogenic substances."

"Stop kidding around, Mythra. We saw him too." Malos had walked behind Minoth and was bracing one hand on each shoulder. "C'mon big guy, try it again. Concentrate on that patch of Angel's Sage right there."

So, Minoth did, focusing on the physical properties of his strange power and a target that on every other occasion he had avoided marking.

"...Addam?" The apparition was back, even more vivid and definitely all in one piece.

Minoth walked without thought to the path of his feet towards the wildflowers, then bent down and released the swirl of energy thereupon. When it cleared away, the prince's body was lying still in the grass, peaceful and...a little too peaceful. Minoth couldn't do much besides stare in abject confusion.

"So...you stored the data of his dead body in your Core? Father above, that's grim," Malos pronounced, trying to assess the situation, but Mythra distractedly pulled at his arm. "No, Malos, look. He's breathing."

The Flesh Eater had taken his late Driver's hand and started feeling around for any sign of life. Addam gave a jolt, and his unconsciousness turned to gentle sleep.

"Minoth." He raised a hand to beckon Mythra down without moving his eyes from Addam's face for an instant. "Have you used that power since Addam died?" Minoth shook his head.

"I only ever concentrated the energy in the air. I was about to- oh, thank god. Thank god."

She laid a hand on his heaving shoulder with the invitation of a question. "I was about to use it on Amalthus, but I didn't end up feeling quite that merciful. If I had, I've got a feeling I'd be looking at a different Driver right now."

"You wanna test it out? See if you can vaporize and regenerate one of those flowers?"

"No way. I'm not taking any chances until I know he's safe." Mythra's grin was faint but there. "You're the boss."

"You think you maybe wanna tell his wife, or...?"

"What if it doesn't work? Not worth getting her hopes up. I can explain it later."

"Fair enough," Malos shrugged his assent and joined them in their pseudo-vigil. It was several minutes before Addam stirred again.

"My prince?" Minoth breathed out, hardly able to let himself believe. Mythra was smiling with the realization that he'd been waiting for far too long to be able to say that again, not referring to his beloved prince by anything but simply his name since that fateful day all those weeks ago...it had been just one, in fact.

"Minoth?" Addam tried to sit up, but found more resistance from the front than assistance needed from the back, where Minoth's hand was hovering. "Oh, Titan's foot, that doesn't feel right." They were all loath to consider what might be lurking underneath the armor, but said nothing of it for the time being.

"Addam, is it really you?"

The prince smiled as broadly as ever and gripped Minoth's upper arm. "Of course it's me! You rather look like I died, or something!"

"Prince...you did die." Addam's frown was only transient. "I did what?"

Though she knew Minoth probably had it handled, Mythra had to cut in and make sure nothing got lost to the emotional reunion. "Addam, what's the last thing you remember?"

"Why, we were out in Ciesias Grove, fighting off Amalthus's forces. Minoth and I, that is. The rest of you all were somewhere else on the Titan; we had split up. I took a hit to the stomach, and it knocked me out, but I remember there was a Gormotti healer nearby. Must have been out for quite a few hours, but I'm up now. Am I somehow misremembering?"

Minoth sat back in the dirt with a soft thud, still keeping a hold of his Driver's hand. Malos moved to brace Addam's back in his stead.

"Prince, you couldn't be more wrong." He tugged the gold cloth aside and displayed his lurid Core.

"Wha- I thought we fixed that. Your Core Crystal shouldn't be that color at all." The Aegises would have been rolling their eyes at the patently obvious observation if the appropriate knowledge thereof hadn't been so far out of the bounds of the prince's brain.

"And that's where you're right. I had to eat your heart, Addam. That blast from the Titan weapon just about killed you, and it's only by some strange machination of the Architect's system that you're here talking to us now."

Addam processed this. "I follow right enough, only...if you ate my heart, then what's keeping my blood pumping right now?"

Minoth grimaced. "Can I suffer you the embarrassment of finding out?"

And, then, Addam's answering grin was roguish. "If you've got it hot for me, who am I to stop you?"

"We're all snarky, Prince, and we will hit you...later." This did nothing to stop the gray eyebrows from wriggling, but Minoth had other things to take care of.

Once more he peeled back the layers of pewter and chain mail to reveal the flesh underneath. Twin scars greeted him, each outlining a roughly circular shape, one covering the left pectoral muscle and the other orthogonal to it over the appendix. The ridges around them differed, however: the former well cauterized and precise, the latter lumpy and brutalized.

Mythra sucked in a wince. "Ooh...those've gotta hurt."

"Yeah, I'm not sad to have missed the experience of flesh wounds," Malos agreed.

Addam was peering down to get as true a look as he could, and even at the odd angle the gravity of those wounds was apparent. "Well, you did rather a neat job, Minoth."

"What do you take me for, a hooligan?" The banter came easy and natural, like they'd never been apart. "Architect, Addam," he breathed after a long moment of looking. "Now we really are even."

"So that definitely happened. Only one way to confirm if you've really got a ticker left underneath. You ready, Addam?"

The worn, earnest smile was absolutely beautiful, if only to him. "Hit me."

After eight years, channeling ether to Addam needed only the faintest flicker of a thought in the back of Minoth's mind. Like knowing where your right hand was, and clamping wrists with your left, it was sight in a darkness that could be utterly devoid of light. And then, when some flash of electric brilliance lit it up, you marveled in that innate ability and never felt so secure.

Just like all the times before, Addam felt it, but not half as strongly. He expected some affected outburst from Minoth, however curtailed due to present company, but instead...

"Flora! Flora!!" Addam's wife emerged from the tent a few yards away, drying her hands on a rag.

"Is everything a-- Addam!" The rag was discarded and the distance quickly closed as she rushed to kneel next to her husband. To Addam's surprise, Minoth made no motion to get out of her way, instead holding them both close with unbridled contentment.

Red eyes met tired smiles and frantic kisses found eager cheeks, noses, eyes. Xander had followed after his mother and stretched arms around Malos and Mythra, pulling the six of them together in an unbreakable ring.

"I'm not even going to ask how. Just-- Maybe we can finally be whole, now."

It's what they deserve. You take a playwright cowboy Blade, right, and you say what could be the fullest, most tragic extent of your powers? Why not to bury your precious loved dead in your mind, and try your damned fruitless best to rewrite the canon of your life that led it to be so? And then, why not to make it real?

Also, this thread which I took into account (careful: spoilers for NieR).

Chapter 47: Where the Sour Turns to Sweet - "Look inside your mind, see the darkness creeping out."

Now, see, did you do that by intuition or intellection? We'll never know? Nonsense! If you can't tell, surely it must be the former! It's rather like the stark sound of rain without the mollifying effect of clouds, isn't it? That's good! Screw all those other methods, send them to jail! Say it with me: the heart knows best.

What's a small half-found, half-nuclear family to do when one of their number has just been miraculously brought back from the dead and they're technically still in a warzone and could be arrested for treason against a country that one, maybe two, maybe three of them could be expected to bear allegiance to? Why, sit in the shade and talk of nothing important, of course!

It was a little cliché, to be sure, but Flora had wanted to run a careful, if shuddering, hand over the scar left by the Blade Eater weapon, and mawkishly kiss around the border of the heart scar, because after all its existence was what had kept Minoth alive, and then by sequence brought Addam back to them. And, Minoth leaned back against their tree of choice with his more or less asleep Driver sitting between his legs, burying his nose in the oh so wonderfully real and alive head of hair and finding that there was no thought even so much as present in his mind.

It would have been twice as ridiculous if Addam had been trying to make small talk while his Blade and spouse were still very physically convincing themselves of his reality, so Xander, Malos, and Mythra just looked on with fond smiles. Something about not being there to see their father (father figure?) actually die his bloody death had made the whole thing feel less real, but by the same token made the fact of his presence there in front of them a little hazy, a little too dreamlike. Mythra figured she might as well get down to brass tacks to ground them.

"So, Minoth," she started gingerly. "I think we're all a little curious about how exactly that power of yours works. It could be...pretty important."

The Flesh Eater reluctantly raised his head, his face puffy and almost petulant. "I think using it once was enough, thank you very much." Back down the nose went to find a home among the bird's nest of gray.

Peeking with a more focused gaze at the tangle of hands and arms that surrounded Addam, Mythra saw that one of Minoth's was free, so she gently took it and found that it was indeed shaking. "Easy there, big guy. If you wanna just chill out here for a while, it's like I said - you're the boss."

Malos elbowed her, snickering. "Are you kidding? Minoth's whipped," and indeed the Flesh Eater was too tired to argue or even glare. "As soon as Addam wakes up from his little nap he'll be raring to go with plans for where to move next."

As the Dark Aegis said this, Addam stirred and looked up to rest his eyes on Xander. Seeing as he hadn't even really known that he'd been away, the sight wasn't particularly jarring, but he grinned nonetheless as he stretched.

"Well, Xander, did you take good care of your mother while I was gone?" Addam asked jovially, nodding his head sideways at the woman on his arm.

In response, Xander scratched the back of his own head and confessed, "Actually, Mum's been taking better care of us. She's been, uh, using that switchblade you gave her."

Addam gave a gasp of mock shock. "Flora, you undignify yourself! That weapon was merely for self-defense!"

But, she just smiled lazily at him and patted his hand. "We're a pretty good team, even without you, sorry to say."

"Oh, damn," Minoth said suddenly, cursing under his breath. "Addam." "Mhm?" "We...we killed Amalthus."

Addam pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows, considering this. "Well. That's rather big news, isn't it."

They hadn't really considered the weight of it since then, busy as they had been with, firstly, getting the hell off of Indol, then getting back on for the purpose of reclaiming lost souls, and then...this whole extravaganza.

"Pretty big," Minoth concurred, nodding himself. "Now it's official. I offed one Driver, and got three more in return - each one better than the last!"

His words, as could easily have been predicted, had an equally big impact on Addam. "Three Drivers?! You've been whoring yourself out, Minoth?"

Minoth would have smacked the back of Addam's head with the lion's share of his strength if his first real Driver didn't already feel so fragile under his grip.

"No, you clown, I'm a Flesh Eater again, remember? Means I can have affinity links with whoever I so choose, and I so chose Flora and Xander." So saying, he beamed at them with every bit of warmth he could dredge up from his cowboy's bones. "I sure don't regret it."

And oh, how could he possibly? Xander came to his right side to thrust an arm in and give whatever amount of a hug fit into their already packed embrace, and Flora leaned back to receive a kiss somewhere between the crown of her head and the tip of her nose. Home is wherever I'm with them? In-fucking-deed.

If Addam had any comment on this, he didn't give it, instead focusing on the twin Aegises sat in front of him. "Well, Mythra, Malos, is this what you expected of humanity?"

They snorted in awkward tandem. "I don't think anyone could ever have expected Minoth Origo," Malos said with a scoff. The referenced Blade indeed indulged him in the expression, calling back, "Well you're lookin' at him!"

Mythra, for her part, affectionately ruffled Malos's hair down from its fauxhawk as she rested her head on her brother's shoulder. "Yeah, it's not so bad," she quipped, and after all she was right, because Malos returned the gesture with a hesitant arm around her shoulder too.

"I don't know if it's...everything for us," she continued tepidly, "but I think if there's something really special to being alive, you guys probably have it, and I...I'm glad to be here."

"Ditto," Malos whispered, but only she could hear it.

Opposite them, Minoth slowly drew his arms out from wherever they were being held and laced his fingers together to prop his chin up on top of Addam's head. "I feel like I haven't been a side character in this story for quite some time. That alright with you two? Is there anything you need?"

Mythra scoffed, quick to switch off from the sappy mood if only because she was capable. She was capable. Damn. Yeah. "'This story.' Dude, it is your story, and you earned it. You basically fucking rewrote the canon with this whole maneuver. I'm cool with it."

"You're cool with a lot of things," Minoth remarked, cocking his head to the side. "It's a far cry."

Absolutely. "Well, so we're all wrapped up nice and tidy now. Isn't that the way you'd like it?"

"It is," he allowed. "As long as you're happy."

And really, with Amalthus gone, the suffusionary source of most all of the blights that had come upon them, their family, they could be. Both Malos and Mythra come into each their own, understanding fostered by the wisdom of age; Xander much of the same, but then he hadn't ever faltered; Addam roundabout atoned for the shortsighted shirking of his age while still in his youth; Flora wise as ever and now tempered upwards to understand her role in this crazy world; and Minoth.

Minoth, who had gone from hating his useless, surface-level signifer of a Core, the one that wouldn't let him live that wouldn't let him die that wouldn't let him be real and whole and a fucking normal Blade and someone Addam could actually deserve and want, someone - a Blade kind of someone, not even kind because don't fucking duck type this I wanted to be real I wanted to be fucking REAL - who deserved a Driver, deserved a good Driver--

From all that, to embracing the way it allowed him to understand others not just as an impartial, voyeuristic observer but as truly one with his experiences and world. Blade, Driver, Flesh Eater, Blade Eater, Aegis, it didn't matter, doesn't matter. There wasn't and isn't just one right way to be, one sure path to esteem and righteousness, even trust and affection. And that wasn't just down to Addam being a loving fool, or Xander following in his footsteps.

Flora judged him with absolute equanimity, didn't cast any spare glances for the reason of ostracization.

(If it's simple, it seems complicated. If it's complicated, it seems simple.)

Mythra marked him by the way his character had turned itself out, not by the fact that his bond with Addam came stretched over time instead of invested all at once.

(Yeah, he's your Driver.)

Malos, ever logical, even when to a dastardly fault, accepted with impunity the position of Minoth-- Minoth Origo. Minoth the requisite member, Minoth the one who belonged. Of course.

(I may not like you, but I can tell that you're important.)

"Malos." "Yeah?"

"Am I 'still an asshole'?"

Malos stood and ambled over to the tree to lean against it and eye the horizon. "Nah. And what about me?"

Reaching a decisive arm up, Minoth yanked the Dark Aegis down by the elbow to fall in with them. Fall on top of them? No, I said what I meant the first time.

"Of course you are. It's in your character."

"In other words, that's what's on the record?"

Minoth nodded, nudging Addam and Xander forward to make room for Mythra. "That's right. And off the record?"

He let the pocketed phrase settle in the air as they shifted arms and angles.

"And off the record?" Malos repeated once he had shoved Mythra's perhaps not completely wayward fist out of his face.

"I'm damned proud of you."

"Ugh," came the muffled protest from Mythra, "you sound like Addam."

Across the veritable cuddle pile, Flora had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud. She was right, of course. Sighing, Minoth stretched his wingspan to its fullest to wrap around them all. "Do you hear him talking, Mythra? Bless the silence, if you please."

"Now, now, I-" But before their beloved patriarch could finish, Minoth had kissed him to shut him up. Unstoppable force and immovable object, and all that. Wondrous apprisal, indeed.

"Mythra. Can you change my element, perchance?"

The sound that came out of her mouth in response was half a guffaw and half a huff. "Hold your literal horses there, Minoth. You want me to do what?"

They were gathered around a campfire, six and whole, knees bumping and smiles flickering in the firelight that lit up the night-dulled yellows and greens of the landscape. Addam was dozing on Flora's shoulder, and she paid little mind to the conversation as she idly stroked her hand over Minoth's upper leg. Xander's interest was piqued, of course, but he kept quiet and observing, picking at a scuff in his armor from where he sat between his father and the twin Aegises.

"Darkness is for justice, isn't it? I've had mine, now. I don't think I was ever supposed to be Dark. I'm not trying to speculate about when that changed, but certainly I think Earth is the way I was made to be."

"You wily old bastard," Malos cut in, "you just wanna combo with Addam."

Ever prepared for banter, Minoth swiftly replied, "You have a problem with that? I won't duplicate with you anymore, after all." Fair enough.

Mythra worried her lips and rubbed a hand over her shoulder, underneath the cup of the pauldron. "And you're not afraid something's gonna go haywire if we do this? Your Core's not much for modifications anymore."

Because after all, what had happened the last time...and yet he didn't feel anywhere near that much brutal abandon this time around. Mere curiosity, something warm and kept. Something that...not worth dying for, honestly, for all how silly it was. "That you're right. Maybe it's not worth a try. Just a thought."

"Minoth, wait a minute." The Flesh Eater paused his metaphorical steps away, his motive exit from the conversation, in acknowledgement of Malos's call. "I can tell that it bothers you. The whole smiting thing. You don't...you don't want to be like me."

Maybe so. Maybe so. Very interesting, very astute, Malos. "Did I say that? There are a lot of things about you that I admire. But, then...indeed, that isn't one of them."

Violence didn't play into it, anymore. By conscious choice, and then again by other things. To be gentle came naturally by now - to both of them, all three of them, even. Hell of a cocktail, he'd called it, and Malos wasn't much more of Molotov than he was or ever had been.

"It's just interesting, I suppose," Minoth reopened his musing at last. "It doesn't matter, really. Nature versus nurture, one might say. Not like brown is any particular favorite color of mine, or purple either, for that matter."

Malos shrugged, arms crossed yet again. "Call it a trope or something, right? An archetype? Stereotype? I don't give a shit, but hey, we're all learning from you. Anyway. Point is, sure, we don't need two purple guys. It makes enough sense. You know...an interesting experiment?"

He hazarded the word, and Minoth summoned up a faux wince in obliging in-joke response. "Absolutely piquant."

"Sure, it's hilarious, cowboy. You know, you really aren't that bad when you're not acting pissy."

"Pots and kettles, Malos. Pots and kettles." Dinner was over, but the cookware yet remained.

"Alright, alright, you got me. That aside, I'm game for it as much as you are, if Mythra is."

She had finished her nervous, tribulated ministrations at tricep, and rolled her eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded. "Absolutely. You know I'm ready for anything. But you're not gonna ask Addam, or anything?"

Flora was still fairly blithe as the concepts floated by her, seeming to understand perfectly the direction Minoth was coming from. "He's my Driver, not my owner. I'm letting him sleep."

"Just...letting him sleep," Mythra repeated. "You're gonna do this behind his back, while he's fucking asleep? What if you die?" Her confidence had apparently so conveniently flushed itself away at the notion.

Shaking his head, Minoth brushed a rare stray strand of hair off of Flora's cheek and gave Addam's exposed shoulder a gentle poke. "I'm just asking a question. I like to be educated, after all. What I meant was that I'm letting him sleep now. There'll be time to deal with this later, won't there? Unless I've missed accounting for something, there should be."

Oh. Oh? "Is that why you're so chill about this, then, Flora?" Mythra asked her, bringing her into the discussion wholesale now.

"Me? I'm always chill." Was not, even if her temper kept itself in impressive check the overwhelming majority of the time. Her little joke, and Minoth's arm squeezed tight around her shoulders in recognition. "Our bond is pretty strong, I'm happy to say. If he felt uneasy about this, I think I'd probably feel it."

Not about the power or technique, just the bond itself. Just the feeling, the trust, the quiet companionship, the sheer ease of it all. To ask a question, to wonder whimsically about the bounds and bindings of this world but to not be rushed into doing anything about it, making rash decisions in the face of some threat. Peace, fucking peace. Ridculous! Not made for wartime, was their playwright. And that was his point.

"How come he's sleeping so much, anyway, do you think?"

Minoth cracked his neck, thought about it. "My guess has been that I didn't retrieve him from whichever purgatory he was sitting in with a whole lot of life force in mind, so he's just pretty damn tired. Rather have him sleepy and alive than wired-up and dead."

"And yet you're not cuddling him to death as we speak," Malos taunted.

"Leave off, our midnight pyromaniac," Minoth returned, making to do just that. "How about you just wake me when it's time to return me to the earth?"

Don't be so fucking artfully morbid, Malos thought, but he and Mythra really had no need for sleep, so they soon engaged Xander in a madcap game of Dealing Kingdoms, keeping pointedly oblivious of their very own kingdom now lost beneath the clouds.

Some time later, Addam stirred, and they roused the other three Origos in sequence (Xander slumped belly-first over a series of logs, Flora reposed in Minoth's lap, and Minoth himself recalling some of that sleep-like-a-horse energy to have remained more or less upright the entire time) to make a consensus of the silly event.

Addam's smile was broad as ever, and he agreed heartily to the idea, clapping a warm hand over Minoth's knee and receiving no retribution at the intimate placement. Another fifteen careful minutes in the aurum of Elysium, as Mythra, perhaps Pneuma in a flash of green, took Minoth there and tested her changes before committing them, and then they were out.

("Fancy meeting you here," he had said with a grin wide as the boundless sky. "Shut up and keep still so I can get you back to your boyfriend in one piece," she'd replied, but she hugged him before they left. Doesn't count if it's in a dream, right? Ugh, this guy...but this time with feeling. With love.)

Core still pink, lines still blue, scar still carved, heart still pulsing. "You feel okay? All your ducks in a row?"

His only answer was a crumbling swirl of reddish-brown ether cast at the grass near the base of the fire. It elicited practically no reaction from the organic material, and Minoth nodded, satisfied. Then, he unholstered one of his guns and fired a celebratory shot into the night sky, where it exploded in the same flourish of brilliant yet natural tones.

"Better than okay. I feel right." And as they all trundled into the tent to continue their circadian circus, Mythra thought, of course you do. We're alive, and we're together. We are your fucking ducks, even. You couldn't feel any other way.

The whole element switch is an in-universe nod to how Minoth was almost definitely conceptualized as an Earth Blade. He's got the cowboy aesthetic, none of his attacks actually refer to darkness at all, and his skills involve digging things up and looking at bugs - they literally give him to you in preparation for the desert! I was especially convinced of this when hearing "The earth take you!" in his voice lines - Aegaeon has "The sea take you!" - but when I actually went to transcribe all the lines so I could have an easy reference (O(1) lookup as opposed to O(n) for those computationally minded), I saw that that was just his Smash voice line, and he's not the only one with some unique flair on those. Still, since I have decided to tie Addam pretty heavily to his initial weapon, it fits for team balance to have an Earth Blade around now.

Chapter 48: Your Own Special Way - "Oh, won't you come here, wherever you are, I've been all alone long enough."

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

-- e. e. cummings, "[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]"

"So, Minoth." The silver eyebrows were once again arched in a challenge as Addam looked up from the map he was studying. The Flesh Eater was leaned up against the far wall of the tent, scribbling something unimportant in a notebook while Flora nestled underneath the arm that was holding the writing surface steady.

"While I was gone, you seem to have made nice with my wife. Makes the circumstances of my disappearance a little suspicious, don't you think?"

Minoth absently shifted his arm tighter as Flora preened and cuddled closer. "Don't be too jealous, love. I just think he has interesting handwriting, that's all." This got Minoth's attention and a chuckle, and the dark-haired twosome smiled at each other in some private joke.

Addam gave a huff of mock offense. "Have I been shunted out then? For shame, Flora!"

Shaking her head, she tried in vain to hook a foot around his ankle and pull him their way. "Quite the contrary. We were just lonely without you."

Minoth finally sheathed quill in spine and called over, "What's that you always said, Addam? Looks to me like I've got two arms."

"Mmm, yes. So have we all..." So saying, the prince abandoned geographic strategizing and joined his partners, lurching down on the hard-packed earth with a groan. Minoth caught him easily with his free arm and carded rough fingers through to catch on his Driver's already-ruffled hair.

"Oh, Architect, I'm being silly." Minoth and Flora cocked heads at not-quite-matching angles. "This is what I wanted, after all. Oh, not this," he gestured to the tent and map, "but...this."

"S'alright, Prince. Better to have it now and take a moment to realize than to be going after it before we were ready."

Addam sighed, nonetheless. "I wish I had, you know...oh, I know I'll sound a fool, but I wish I had a proper house and bed for us, a proper life to provide for you two."

Flora's small but calloused hand reached across Minoth's lap for Addam's. "Addam, how could you possibly think that we would blame you? Torna, our lost home, is sunk beneath the clouds. Even if we were to blame Mythra and Malos - which we won't - it's no great failing of any of ours. You've done no less than make a family out of us all, and that's more home than any house."

Addam snorted. "If you don't count the six of us who are already blood family and Blades, I haven't the foggiest where Lora and the rest are. We all but lost track of Mikhail somewhere between Indol and Spessia, or so you've told me. Milton, just the same, is hopefully safe and happy as a young Gormotti man can be in this age, and Hugo takes care of his own business. We haven't seen Nuncle in weeks, and my own father is dead because we put more thought to Minoth's plays than to his safety! Just what have I protected, Flora?"

Minoth's voice was an uncharacteristically low rumble. "You've protected all those who look to you for their safety. That's more than most men can say."

"Quite, and I very nearly lost my own life doing it. Most men would be dead right now, if they were me. Following that, I rather think there's a higher standard for ex-princes of my stature."

The hand is his hair tensed a little bit, then relaxed. "Hey, you won't find people with standards higher than the two of us. Call it enough, my prince."

Minoth had stumbled somewhat over how to refer to himself and Flora, and his hesitation didn't slip by Addam unnoticed. "Is that what I should call you? My people?"

"Last surviving loyal subjects of the Lord of Aletta? We're your people, alright." If Addam's back hadn't already been in front of Minoth's shoulder, he would have shoved it.

"Stop trying to derail my sappiness with your literariness. I can be your Driver, or your prince, or any of, I'm sure, dozens of other fantastical titles you could come up with, but what should I call you, after all?"

Flora watched them with amusement. "Minoth told me you called him my husband. If he's mine, he's yours, isn't he?"

Minoth just about groaned when the memory hit him. "'I'd like to call you my own.' Just when I think we've hashed it all out..."

"Hmm? Something you'd rather do?"

"I'd rather one of you kiss me. Is that too much to ask?" The two in his arms snuggled up in tandem. "Don't give it a second thought," one of them, probably Flora, said.

The tent was silent for a moment, and then Addam perked up once more. "You want me to get Mythra to ordain it?"

Minoth didn't crack an eye, but Flora paused the play of her lips near his mouth so that he could answer. "I don't own a tux, Prince."

The Blade's armor was imposing as ever, but Addam walked a pair of wandering fingers underneath the chestpiece and collar nonetheless. "More's the pity," he said, tone tinged with mischief. "I'm sure you'd make it look quite good."

"You wish..." Minoth muttered. He was only half listening, having been caught up in thought ever since the scoffing recollection of what Addam had said.

"So what now?" he mused, a little absently. "Three parents, and we each pick a favorite kid?" He reminded himself once again of the complexity they had and had had to strike with Mythra, but still. "Gonna be a big fight over who gets Xander..."

"Silly..." Flora murmured into his ear, because they were all thoroughly winded bone-deep and the chance to just sit together in comfortable semi-silence had been hard won. "I'll take Malos, if you want."

"Yes, that works out handily," Addam agreed from Minoth's other side, where he had returned to plying his usual favorite idle pastime of running a finger over the various lines on his Blade's palm. "I'll take Mythra."

Sighing with greater effort, Minoth shook both Addam and Flora off of him and readjusted his sitting position. "Come on, you two. First of all, you know that's not right. Bad joke on my part, in more ways than one. And second, I wasn't really just joking."

Mild noises of "Oh?" and "Hmm?" fluttered over to him from either side.

"This has been a long time coming for us, Addam, and no matter how many times we think we've gotten it all straightened out there always comes another big moment with all of its melodrama that puts us very nearly right back where we started again - and I don't say that lightly."

Flora grinned up at him. "You mean if you had stayed for lunch that first day you wouldn't have just stayed forever?"

"Tch. You make it sound like you wanted me to."

She laughed. "No, you're right, I didn't, then. But there are a lot of things twenty-year-old me didn't know."

"What, like his fabulous penchant for sociable, easygoing chivalry and his incredibly giving heart?" And Addam was bluffing completely, but if the narrator hadn't said so, the casual observer honestly wouldn't have been able to tell.

"Don't tease, Addam," Flora said, slapping down his wagged finger. "You're as much in love with him as I am, of course."

"Flora..." Minoth breathed. "Yes, love?" "Oh, gods..."

Perhaps making a big show of being cerebral about the whole thing had been a mistake after all. He unfurled his arms once again and pulled them both in, kissing Addam's forehead and Flora's crown in turn, and was planning to just shut up and stay that way, but the poetry bubbling up in his chest had other plans.

"My prince and my princess. I never would have thought it. Oh, not in a thousand years. The two of you are perfect together as any pair of married best friends could be, but...but you need me. Somehow with everything you have, you need me. And by the Architect, Addam, Flora...oh how I need you."

"Minoth, that's what I've been trying to tell you this entire time."

"Oh, can it, Prince, you didn't tell me anything. The princess, on the other hand, was very forthright with what she wanted, and I might have a bit of a favorite myself now..."

Suddenly Addam was thrust back into his faux-scandalized mood. "And just whose heart is in your chest keeping you alive, hmm?"

Minoth made a low noise and rested his chin on the top of his first Driver's head once again. "I once read a very interesting poem back on Indol. Something left by an old civilization and dredged up by Judicium, probably."

"'I carry your heart with me - I carry it in my heart. I am never without it, and anywhere I go, you go...my dear. I fear no fate, I want no world, for this is the deepest secret that nobody knows.' Well, that's most of it, anyway, but the poet's not around to critique my interpretation, that's for damn sure."

He heard a sniffle escape from under his right arm. "You alright in there, Addam?" A bigger sniff, and a shake of the tousled head.

"It's beautiful. I just don't see what Flora could have done that beats that." On the other side, she was simply leaning her head in, eyes closed and smile blissfully content.

"Well for one thing, she asked before she kissed me, unlike a certain handsy prince."

"Me?! You did it just as much, if not more."

"What, did you keep count?"

"No, but I'll bet anything you did!"

"Boys, boys, is it a competition?" Underneath their little tussle, Flora had begun laughing softly, and the longer she did so the more tears sprang to her eyes.

They both swiveled animated faces to point in her direction. "You're bloody well right it is," Addam proclaimed at the same time as Minoth asked smugly, "And would you complain if it was? After all, to make it fair, we'd need to be kissing you."

"Oh, I'm really in for it, am I?" Flora shot back, just as smug. "And what about me? Does no one care to keep score for the lady?"

Addam put a hand to his chin and considered. "Hmmm...well, I think you've rather already won, haven't you? The eternal adoration of two devastatingly handsome men is no small prize, my dear!"

"You're right, that's so. But what are you two winning? All this talk of favorites - you want me to pick one of you, then?"

Her husband paled. "No no, that won't be necessary, just...just let's not say anything more about it, alright?"

Above them, Minoth was taking in the unimaginable enormity of where he had come from compared to where he was now, and his own tears began to fall. His partners' argument was half immaterial and half...oh, everything.

"What, afraid you'll lose out?"

"Can you fault me? I've never been good at reading a word of poetry, and his forearms are far stronger."

"Well who said anything about strength? You have a nicer chest."

"And yours is the nicest, of course - stop trying to throw me off!"

Minoth was crying, Addam was crying, Flora was crying, the whole collective embrace shook with happy tears and teary laughter and holding tight, and when Xander poked his head in and said "Gosh, you guys, get a room!" they somehow thought to say in perfect unison "We love you-!" right back to him, and managed to do it without sounding like an eerie chorus.

And, then they were back to bickering, but only for a moment before Addam leaned back with a resounding "Minoth!"

"Mmm?" "Settle this, won't you?"

"It's simple," he started agreeably, finding that he wasn't even the least bit embarrassed about the subject matter and necessary associated wording. "Addam has the nicest chest, then Flora, then me. I have the nicest ass, then Flora, then Addam."

"Flora," here he paused to duck down and give her cheek a hearty kiss, making sure to cradle her face in his hand as he did so, "has the cutest face, then Addam, then me. And that, my loves, means that she gets first choice of cuddling partner, ah...ad infinitum."

"And what if I want you both?" Flora asked mischievously, because of course she did.

"You'd be crushed!" Addam was first to rebut. "You're far too small, Flora."

"What, you two can't be gentle with your beloved wife?"

"Achingly, Flora, achingly!" She rolled her eyes, but affectionately.

"I wouldn't put it past you, Minoth. Do you know, Addam, what this silly, silly Blade of yours did? He asked if he could kiss me, like it was the dearest question in the world, and then what do I find he was thinking of but a little peck on the cheek!"

Minoth felt his own cheeks flush as he remembered the tender moment, but his only explicit outward expression was one of wry gratitude: "And thank the Architect you took matters into your own hands - literally. I know it's not as if we should have needed to hold each other in that way, but it's been a joy every time, Flora."

Indeed, she couldn't have looked more proud of herself, and Addam took notice. "Oh-ho, so it wasn't you courting the widow after all, Minoth - in fact it's Flora who's the cougar!"

"Oh, very funny, Prince. Before you get long-winded, you mind taking us up on that cuddling?" Flora and Minoth wore matching wan smiles - a united front against, and then for, their beloved prince.

"Me long-winded? That's you and you know it!" Addam bristled back.

"You, me, Flora, whichever, all I'm saying is you can drop the offended act. We knew you wouldn't mind about us - not to say that we took it lightly, but it was nice to know it."

Catching the calculation coming over his prince's face, Minoth amended, "It wasn't knowing that specific fact that was nice. It's the fact that we knew at all. The fact that I can know you, really know you, that our bond can bring us that close, that I can look up and count the stars and know that ours will always belong together."

Flora poked his side with a nimble finger. "Long-winded, lovie." Caught out! He threw up a conceding hand. "Lead the way, my lady. I shall be your silent and willing pillow, if you so desire."

It was a silly description, but an apt one, as Minoth lay down on the otherwise unsuitable ground and closed his eyes. Addam and Flora soon joined him, the former wrapping arms around the latter's middle and holding her close between himself and Minoth.

The Blade's promised silence only lasted a few precious minutes, however. "Say Addam, you remember that time we dug up buried treasure in Dannagh together?"

Oh? Addam thought for a moment. Ah, yes. "Oh, you mean that time? Yes, I remember. What about it?"

Before he could blink, Minoth had snuck in to peck at the very tip of his nose, eliciting affectionately rolled eyes from the prince.

"Yes, I remember you doing that, too. Like I said, what about it?"

"That," Minoth pronounced easily, "was for finding me. And this," he continued as he softly dragged his knuckles down the side of Addam's cheek, "is for keeping me."

The whole exchange had occurred over Flora's smiling, shaking head, but she made no objection, of course. It would be foolish to even begin to try to quantify and qualify who or what they were to each other, and so the general idea of cherished keeping close to heart and breast served better than anything else ever could.

Not to objectify Flora, but Addam is an ass man and Minoth is a tits man. I have spoken.

Chapter 49: Afterglow - "Like the dust that settles all around me, I must find a new home."

And love isn't a fact. It's a hunch at first. And then later it's a series of decisions, a lifetime of decisions. That's love.

-- Welcome to Night Vale: Ep. 100, "Toast"

They came upon a fallen Urayan soldier in their trek back over familiar ground, towards the far port once again. No one knew where the Titan weapons had gone, but perhaps they weren't quite disappeared yet, because this fellow had clearly suffered injuries grave enough to bring him well and fully down, and as a singularity that didn't quite compute.

Especially, it didn't compute when there was his Blade fading to ether among a glen of marsh marigolds and water lilies. The silhouette wasn't quite discernable, but it was plainly birdlike, and very large. The crystal, then, was ridiculously small in comparison.

"Should we awaken them?" Flora asked, the first to break the silence as Mythra stepped closer to retrieve the rocky remain. Malos and Addam, meanwhile, moved the corpse to exchange with it, buried in water like they supposed a Urayan should want to be. A single grave out here on the ridge didn't really suit, after all. No, not as a singularity.

"You really want to?" She hefted the crystal in her gloved palm, tracing the runes easily, confidently, more than ready to do what an Aegis was called to, made for.

"I don't see why not. They weren't meant to die here, and goodness knows we've messed with a lot of that, but still...why not?"

Quite a turn from her words in the World Tree. No, she was suggesting a fresh awakening, that much was plain, but there was an abandon, an anti-trepidation in her voice even as it was meted by wisdom. It was one and all, of course, that Addam and Minoth absolutely cherished. They all did.

Mythra shrugged, smiled, spun the crystal from palm to palm once again. "You ready?"

One gentle impulse, and it glowed. "I'm ready." And she tossed it, because a bird is made to fly.

To fly and to caw and to do all sorts of other admirable things, they emerged with an accompanying veritable whirl of brilliant feathers.

"Well, you're just a little slip of a thing, aren't you?" they crowed in introduction to their new Driver.

Flora was undaunted, even fierce in the face of the great bird. "Don't let that fool you! And what's your name?"

"I am Roc. Always have been, always will be!"

"Fantastic!" Flora exclaimed, clasping her hands in front of her. "Roc, this is everyone - Addam, Minoth, Xander, Malos, Mythra, and we've more friends, but they're not with us now."

Minoth was surprised at how easily and defiantly she had skirted that particular prickle - potentially having lost people outright was a whole lot different from simply losing track of them, but then that was their Flora for you, wasn't it? To her it was a problem waiting to be solved, whether in a more corporeal form or not.

Like all things, it seemed, Spessia was soon sunk too, the rudderless Praetorium still taking ample advantage of the fact that both Aegises had been scouted out there to shift blame. Ever fortunate, they were spirited away to Leftheria by Azurda, who had finally sought them out where they lingered on the erstwhile swampy place, but he suffered a much more fatal blast of a landing this time than ever before, and was reduced to a Core once more. 'Twas to be an ever-dormant one of the same, end of the cycle and end of the line. Not so bad, for him, in the end.

But then, when you have the Aegises around, what's to stop life from being saved, from being not wrecked but resurrected? The fallen crystal was indeed so like a dragon's egg, and Malos and Mythra crouched around it and pieced together what had fallen away, circuitous synapses and all that would get their beloved Nuncle up and running again. Of course, it wouldn't be him, but it would be better than nothing.

Eventually, they stood, and gestured for Xander to come closer. The dull blue had started to thrum to almost-life.

"You want me to...?"

"Well sure," Malos said with a quirk of beguilingly squared brow. "I doubt he's much of a Nuncle anymore, though," Mythra put in. "More of a Gramps, for you."

He was still a stony creature, grass grown fresh and mossy along a back with jutting spines that matched those of the late Tornan Titan. The same horn held, and the same grim mouth with watchful yellow eyes looked on.

"Do you remember us?"

The horn shook grave negation, but not without an accompanying smile. "I've never seen you before in my life, my boy. Would you care to enlighten me?"

Xander bit his lip and turned to look at the rest of the group. Malos stood with arms crossed over Mythra's head, and shockingly, she let him lean there. A clattering noise came from Roc, likely at the expense of a scandalized Addam whose royal butt was at the forefront of Minoth's most recent joke. Flora was, indeed, yet so small beneath them all, but her hand held gently, quietly, idly in Minoth's as she returned his searching glance was somehow the biggest thing.

Facing Azurda once more, he breathed a shaky, relieved grin. "I don't really know if I could. Can I give you a hug, anyway?"

"What, am I to be the grandfather of this whole extravaganza?"

Warmth came from places so unexpected, love flowed when the world tried to stop it. Who, long ago, so long ago, had been Azurda's Driver, had made him so wise and so obliging? What kind of powerful twists of fate?

"You were a Titan, just now," Xander stated confidently at last. "And we're from Torna, just like you, so I guess that's pretty much your job."

"Fair enough," Azurda laughed, just as deep as ever. "I'll need names, then."

Oh, here we go. "Let's see...over here we have Malos, Mythra, and Minoth. You're Azurda, I'm Alexander, and that's Addam - my father. And Mum, breaking the pattern, is Flora, along with her Blade Roc."

Wrinkled nose squinted to meet wrinkled nose, and Roc tilted their head and clicked their beak. "Have I caused some transgression, here?"

Flora laughed and laid a fond hand over the near wing. "Not at all, Roc. At least now there's someone in my corner!"

"And I always will be, my lady," they preened, oblivious to or perhaps willfully ignorant of Addam and Minoth's ensuing noises of indignance.

Azurda didn't even need to clear his throat to regain command of the conversation. "Quite a full house, indeed. I hope the seven of you never tried to ride around on that old dragon's back?"

Silence met him then, issuing from a complete array of sheepish, guilt-hung faces. He studied each one in turn, the complexity of his expression only growing at each pass.

"Is that perhaps the cause of what laid me dormant once more?"

More silence, but ah, you couldn't fool a wily one like him. He was more than a transport Titan, had been more than one, and if they had used him as such then it wasn't to make him into a pack animal, yet the confrontation now that he was more their size and shape was truly a conundrum.

"Er...we're sorry?" was Xander's final head-scratching offering.

"And you had better be," Azurda replied with a slightly snooty lift of his horn. "Treat your grandfather better than that, will you?"

Mythra rolled her eyes and shrugged off Malos's weight. "Oh, they will. You're not ready for how much they will-!" The broken cadence was due, you see, to Malos shoving her between the shoulder blades as they all converged upon Xander and Azurda. Indeed, they would.

Eventually, Addam did indeed get them that proper house and bed once again. Their new abode in a humble Leftherian village recalled Aletta Manor in many ways, with the large but cozy rooms and ample facilities for their many hobbies, but this was built of wood and not stone upon the sandy, grassy earth, and it was really, truly, all their own.

Minoth had a study, of course, and a library that he was determined to fill even if entirely by his own efforts, but there was hardly the ghost of a question about where he would sleep. So, come the late evenings, he'd lie there next to his prince and their lady, reading and most times dissecting some story scrounged from a local villager, content as could be.

Flora, meanwhile, traced idle patterns on Addam's chest and shoulders, and he made no bones about it until she began to whisper in his ear. He coughed rather obviously, and it took her a moment to realize he was gesturing to Minoth.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Minoth," she said, truly apologetic but with a hint of something else in her tone.

"Hmm? By all means, carry on, I'm not bothered."

"You won't feel left out?" she purred, and ah, that was the something else.

"F-Flora!" Addam stammered, looking pained. "I only meant that it would be awkward!"

"What, and you'd forget our dear Blade so easily?" "Well, I--"

While they bantered, Minoth had marked his page and laid the novel aside, turning over to gaze interestedly up at them through one lazy scarred eye.

Flora was unabashed and reached out to run a finger along the edge of the discolored skin, then lean over Addam to kiss the area just between Minoth's cheek and eye. He chuckled lowly.

"See, Addam, this isn't so bad, is it?"

Having recovered from his embarrassment, the prince answered smoothly, "Not at all, if you're so desperate for attention."

But, the Flesh Eater wasn't listening, instead ducking his head around Flora's to nuzzle her ear as his left arm pulled her lower half over Addam to his side.

"Fine, have it your way," Addam muttered in only half-faux annoyance.

He made to turn away, but was stopped by a thread of ether winding its way towards his chest. Minoth had finished his rotation and was lying catlike under Flora's continued ministrations, sighing in deep contentment and reaching for Addam's hand.

"Now, Prince, you didn't think I'd leave you out, did you?" And, of course, Addam didn't mind sharing, because that was what they all did. It did seem that, if the two men weren't busy fawning over Flora, Minoth was more often than not the main object of the group's affections, however...

"You're lucky I love you, Minoth." His beloved Blade laughed and ran a tender thumb over his chin, and oh, what a wondrous thing. "You're darn right I am."

It was here at last, after those many, many years, that they began to break the pattern of simply sleeping next to each other, abandoning what slotted in somewhat naturally, if stiffly, for being close, truly close. They fought about it every time, a little bit, because Addam wanted Minoth to hold him as obviously he had the biggest, coziest arms, and Minoth wanted to hold Flora while laying on top of Addam's chest because come on, you can't get cozier than that, and Flora just wanted to lie underneath both of them and be warm, and of course they couldn't argue with her, because she was their princess, their queen. No questions asked!

(Oh, but that's a bit of a lie. They always did try, a little bit, and sometimes she deemed that they could have their way. The very next night, of course, they repaid her. It was only fair and economical, after all.)

Around one fair All Hallow's Eve, Haze helped Flora and Malos design a female version of Minoth's leather attire, and Mythra gave Flora a greasepaint scar detailed with a surgeon's eye. For his part, Minoth donned a simple beige linen shirt and crepe pants, and he lent his expert swaggering touch to the final adjustments of the belt and ether banners with gusto.

She was fair and he was dark, his stature too bold and hers too petite, but Addam was delighted with the escapade nonetheless, gathering both up in his arms and declaring that he knew his life really wouldn't be right without either of them.

Come every Valentine's Day, he didn't even bother competing with Minoth's romanticism, but the trio made sure to devote the whole day to spending time cuddling, cooking, dancing, and listening to music together. It was pure crystalline domesticity, and Minoth was intoxicated by it more and more with each passing day.

They did get wedding rings after all, each a set of two simple gold bands stacked together: Addam's with aquamarine and tourmaline stones, Flora's with beryl and tourmaline stones, and Minoth's with beryl and aquamarine stones. The first two Origos had never bothered with rings, and no one had really cared enough about their union to make an objection to it, so it was rather a new thing for them all.

Hugo snuck off his home Titan one brisk, windy week to ordain the silly affair, bringing Brighid and Aegaeon and a massive wreath of flowers that the Water Blade had insisted upon making up with him. Lora's squad whisked in from Gormott as well, hand in hand in hand in hand in hand with Milton, Mikhail, Jin, herself, and Haze all in a gleeful row.

Begrudgingly, Minoth let Flora put his hair into a crown braid, because she wanted them all to look nice for the picture, but he wasn't exactly sure it wasn't just an excuse to hide kisses all over the top of his head, and he definitely felt Addam sneak some of his own in (the only reason he could possibly deduce that Flora, perfectionist that she was but never foolish or prideful about it, wouldn't deign to use a mirror).

The picture itself was more meant to be a lasting tangible memory than a big event of its own, so what did they do? Of course, Addam and Minoth locked hands and balanced Flora in the air between them and their lips on her cheeks, and beside them Mythra and Malos supported Xander as he sat with one leg on each of their shoulders and gave them both bunny ears. For all her airs, one who didn't know might think Flora was far more than a little bit exasperated by their antics, but one who did know knew she'd abandoned that façade long ago because she could be the worst of them all if she put her mind to it, of course.

Each day when he slipped the dual-faceted band off to wash up, there was a little weight in Minoth's chest that kept growing deeper with the knowledge that one day the other two would have no fingers to rest upon, while his would yet remain, but the thought that he might perhaps keep both on a pendant chain around his neck, over his heart, kept the darkness at bay.

When Addam Origo passed away, it was merely as a human, not as a Driver, because both his Blades could live on their own.

Mythra, still the same in youthful appearance as she had been on the day of her awakening, if a litle more Amazonian warrior woman, groused and acted cross and closed about the whole thing; she couldn't bring herself to cry. Malos was much of the same, if he tried to joke a little bit, and Xander was quiet and pensive, a fully-grown man now himself.

Minoth and Flora each took one of their prince's hands, clasping their own free together, and the moment was one of a smile on the world. To think at how many points across their lives this could have been so atomically derailed was to lose oneself in a swirl of consideration of the Architect's whims. But, time to move on, no?

"I'm sorry to leave you now, Minoth."

"Never apologize, my prince." Minoth squeezed both the hands he was holding. "There is surely much else that I love."

And, then, a couple of years later, it was Flora's time. She had Roc to think of, but of course, that was Minoth's duty, firmament of the Origos as he had become.

"And how would you have it, Roc?" Memories of a conversation about burying Core Crystals with the Blade's most treasured Driver came to mind, and after all why wasn't that ever done?

"I merely wish to soar the skies above as noble a Driver as she was," they crowed in response, and Minoth supposed that was why.

(Jin and Haze had taken it up that way, he reluctant to ever live another life without his memories of Lora, and she disdainful of the idea of someone else, some wretchedly cheap copy, walking around with her, and by extension her beloved lady's, face. Fine enough, and certainly fair enough.)

Slowly, steadily, the last lady of a lost land breathed her final careful breath, and the great cockerel vanished into ether, vermillion feather by crimson caw. The crystal was dark and dormant, but only in the way that those not yet ready to be reawakened were.

Minoth wrapped it in careful paper and bid Xander, Malos, and Azurda goodbye before he and Mythra boarded a Titan ship to Uraya, the Aegis to journey past him to Tantal. There in the great whale of a Titan, he gifted Roc's Core to the current queen, citing no particular reason for his erstwhile possession thereof, and rented out a small apartment near Mymoma Playhouse.

Someday, he swore, he would tell the tale of Prince Addam Origo's bravery and compassion on that stage, to a world that had freed itself more completely from Amalthus's reek and the gasping cries of sunken Titans. Alrest needed more healing of its own, first, and he planned to play a part in that amelioration, but in some distant future perhaps it would be possible to speak of Flesh Eaters without shame, and instead with love, for the wonderful, terrible, awesome ritual they so truly represented.

He alive, and they passed on. Wasn't how it was supposed to be. And did he really need to be still living, now, without them? If only to tell their story, then yes. He'd take it. For all the chances he had gotten, this wasn't one he particularly needed, because he'd die a human death just the same, now, he wasn't staving reincarnation.

Was that all Blades were doing? Passing their time in deepest devotion to make every second count before the clock got rewound? At least with Amalthus gone, there wouldn't be any more fiddling with it, anyway. Let somebody who believed take the reins into their hands. Let someone who knew how good humans, Drivers or not, could be, and truly embodied it, helm their world under the misstepped Architect.

No, not someone like Addam, because his flaws were more than just the kind a partner should be allowed to see past, to look around. Not Flora, because she was well enough like him to fit the same mold. Not even Xander, because he was a product of their prides and their prejudices. No, someone else. Or all of them, little by little.

Not my place. I'm just a Blade. Oh, how he made you lie to yourself. It's everyone's place, and let them all know it. Stake your place in the world, find the people who will love you like they were born to do it. And don't get penitent about the size of your role, either! There will always be someone eager to know the worlds you hold within you. And that trust? Oh, it's a beautiful thing.

Azurda and Roc have Torna-tuned Blade profiles as well, but they're buried deep in a spreadsheet and I may never let them out! And uh...we're just going to ignore the fact that just like with everything else, I either have incredibly strong suspension of disbelief within my own mind, or I really did just do the whole "Azurda flies to a new place and crash lands and reverts to A State" without remembering once that that's literally what happens to him. Who knows? Not I.

Chapter 50: Ripples... (Never Come Back) - "Angels never know it's time...to close the book, and gracefully decline."

Unapologetic. Hard to kill. Feral, filled with sunlight, bright, beautiful in a way that the conventional and controlling hate but cannot ever fully destroy. Stubborn. Happy. Bastardous. Friends with bees. Highly disapproving of lawns. Full of wishes that will be carried far after I die.

-- Tumblr user headspace-hotel from the most neutral source I could find

Try as he might, Minoth couldn't keep himself afloat for long with his chosen occupation. The world was a little dull right around then, but not in a way that left people wanting. Nobody cared much for plays and escapism, vaguely attempting as they were to still process recent history. After about a decade, even his bitterest savings began to run out, and he couldn't rely on a Blade body's potential for frugality. Eventually, he put out a notice for a sublet, because the apartment was in all honesty too big for a single spartan soul.

When he opened the door after a great, hearty pound, his visitor was nowhere near what he had expected. The Urayan was huge, bulging biceps as much like rocks as the scales coating the sides of his cheeks and temples. Myriad rainbow hair colors weren't at all uncommon on this Titan, but the indigo and yellow streaks in a gray-blue mullet seemed to portend a greater story underneath. If he stays here, there'll be nowhere left for me to sleep, Minoth thought to himself, but made a pleasant enough greeting motion.

"Alright there, fella? I saw your sign down below and thought I'd stop up." And Architect be damned, Minoth hadn't met someone with such a deep, full-bodied voice since...ever, unless you counted listening to his own voice. Only Roc's caws could come close, and what was that? The threshold was near about filled by his surprise guest, but Minoth could catch a streak of brilliant red filling in the gaps in the silhouette.

"Indeed, I'm alright. Who might I have the pleasure of inviting inside?"

As might be expected, the Urayan jabbed a meaty thumb into his chest and declared, "You can call me Vandham - and this here's Roc!" He had to back all the way out of the doorknell to showcase his Blade, but there they were, proud and preening as ever. To go from the tiny Flora Origo to this veritable giant was quite something, even though the Blade wouldn't remember it, of course.

Minoth smiled wryly. "I'm sure I can call you Vandham, but that's rather a transparent way to let me know it's not your real name, even with the bravado. I'm not usually one to pry, but...?"

Vandham had no neck, but hung his head a little bit nonetheless. "You're a sharp one, ain't ya? My birth name's Aquila Paronet Sol Esteriole, and all that." He wobbled the words in faux gusto, clearly disdainful of their noble bent.

"I expected as much. I knew that great bird of yours, some years ago - how are you, Roc?" Roc, at the very least acting unsurprised, clicked their beak and gave a sharp "Pretty good, and I hope the same for yourself!"

"So what gives, friend?" Minoth asked as he ushered them inside. "What's got you cast out of the great halls of Olethro?"

Vandham looked at him sideways, then gave a sigh as he lurched down into a wooden chair that, though sturdy, was certainly not made for his great bulk.

"I had a son. Too early, for their liking and mine, but I loved him. He was a right good lad, but sickly. His heart was never in the best shape, and when he was little more than ten years old, he passed on." The big man choked back a sob.

"They didn't see him worth finer treatment, seeing as he was a bastard and scrawny anyway. With him gone, I said to hell with it and left. I'll find some odd jobs around the Titan somewhere, for sure. They'd already given me Roc - said some bloke'd dropped 'em off and I might as well have 'em."

He clapped a huge hand with practiced reverence on Roc's wing. "Ain't that right, Roc mate?"

"So you've told me, Vandham!" Minoth laughed, reveling in a quiet, relieved joy; Roc loved this gentle giant as much as they had Flora, and Architect love them for it.

His laugh reminded his guests of his presence, and Vandham scratched his chin with rough fingers. "Say...you're a bloke, ain't ya? I'll bet it was you what delivered Roc's Core Crystal! Am I right?"

Minoth tapped idle fingernails on the table, refraining from tipping back his chair to better study Roc's Driver. "Yes, you're right. I'm glad to see they've such a fine Driver to be getting on with now."

Vandham smiled agreeably. "So what's your story, then, fella? That scar seems like it should have a tale behind it, anyway!"

Minoth arched a jagged eyebrow. "You really want to know? It's a long one. I'm...oh, near about ninety years old by now."

Both Driver and Blade wore twin expressions of shock. "Ninety?! Crikey, and you haven't croaked yet? Well, but hang on, it's nothin' but that gray hair that'd let me know!"

He'd be dealing with that reaction for quite some years on into the future, wouldn't he? "Answer me this, then. What do you know in this world that keeps its most youthful appearance long past the time one would expect it to have faded and died?"

Vandham frowned. "A Blade, first of all." Roc nodded their agreement.

"That's right. A Blade I was...his name was Minoth." They hadn't asked his name just now, funnily enough.

"What, and ain't ya that same Minoth anymore?"

Minoth looked somewhere far away, into the corner of the room. "Somehow I think I'd miss the way my Drivers said it too much - if my name ever got much use nowadays, that is." He absently shifted the central folds of his cloak to reveal that dread fuschia Core Crystal and run his thumb over it.

Vandham's eyes followed the motion and worked over the harsh color. "So that's how you remember, huh? A Flesh Eater. Never seen one myself, but it looks like today'll be the first of many things. I'll be Vandham, instead of that Aquila, and you'll be - what, instead o' Minoth?"

"I'm a playwright, and I've been writing under the pen name of Cole."

The big man's laughter was an explosion. "Bwahaha - not half as badass, is it? But I like you anyway, Cole. You mind tellin' me about your Driver? Make it real exciting, like your plays."

Cole scoffed. "You put so much stock in me, just like that?"

Vandham shrugged, a mountain's motion. "You got a trustworthy voice, and an honest face. Don't look nearly as much like trouble as you might think." Touché, unfortunately.

"You're rather the opposite, friend."

"Hey, I've got Roc with me, haven't I? We're trouble! Lotsa trouble."

"Well..." Cole leaned back in his seat now and gazed up at the creaky ceiling. "My Driver thought rather like you. He saw me in Indol once - just once - and seemed determined from that point on to be a friend to me, as much as I thought I didn't deserve it. I came by this scar the hard way, as an experimental Flesh Eater taking mercenary work more dangerous than I should have esteemed myself to, but by and by I joined up with him. At that point I would have called those the happiest days of my life, but that wasn't even the half of it."

Two-sided things, and halves again. He traced a finger around the ever-familiar scar. "By two turns of fate nearing those watched by the Architect in magnitude - and I hope I won't insult you by calling them beyond your ken - I was restored to a mint-condition Blade under his resonance, remembering all we had done, then eventually became a Flesh Eater once more, but by natural means. With all that making me up, we could all face life together unafraid - me, him, his wife, and their son, along with various and sundry Blades and adventuring companions."

Once through the meat of his exposition, Cole glanced back across the table at Vandham, who was cracking his neck and knuckles out of something boredom-adjacent despite his powerful bore of a gaze. "That seems right legendary to me, pal, but what about your Driver, huh? What was he like?" Ah, what was he like?

"Noble, and generous, and wise, ready to try anything, even when his foibles got the best of him. His wife was fiendishly clever and fiercely loving, and she kept the both of us in check. Their son, well, he's the perfect mix of the two, though he'll be closing in on my age soon enough. I couldn't have asked for a more blessedly beautiful family."

When he looked up this time, Vandham was wiping a fresh tear out of the corner of his eye. "That's right beautiful, Cole. Makes ya really feel for what the good in this world can be."

Cole nodded slowly. "You couldn't be more right," he murmured, absently twisting the ring on his right hand. The motion caught Vandham's eye.

"Wait a second...you were married to 'im?"

"Them," Cole corrected softly, fishing out the other two of the trio from where they hung, pushed to one side of his cloak and hidden away.

"And the Praetorium would allow that?" Yes, they were still in power, but less tyrannically so. Cole made a low noise.

"I don't much care for what the Praetorium thinks, and I never have. You probably got registered with that Roc of yours and all, but as long as I'm alive, I'm at least going to make damn sure that I never get treated like the trinket, or tool, or what have you, that they act like Blades are. That's step one, but all the others...might be too much for me to handle alone."

Vandham studied him with a quizzical, eager face before landing on the unspoken conclusion. "Oh...you need a Driver, huh?"

Well, one of many possible ways to fill in the blanks, anyway. "No, I don't need a Driver. But, I'll say that I don't mind having one. They do have their uses, I suppose..."

The big man grinned. "Oh, so you'd put so much stock in me, just like that, is what you're saying?"

Cole grinned back. "Of course. I wasted many too many years not doing the same, a long time ago. Come on, where are your things? I'll put you up at least for the night, and don't you dare worry about paying me back."

Several years passed - more of a couple decades, maybe. Vandham matured, Roc flourished, and Cole...well, all that really changed for him was that eventually he decided to do away with the ponytail. Vandham, mulleted himself, didn't make much comment, only grasping an entire ball of heaving shoulder in hand before bringing Cole in to his comically broad chest and oh so gently kissing away the single tear that had beaded pitifully into existence.

"You're alright, ain't ya, fella?"

"I'm old," Cole replied simply. "I'm not the man I used to be."

"Oh, come on, hair's hair. You weren't losin' it, you just decided to cut it off. So long as you don't start growin' a beard or some such, I won't look at ya too funny, how's that?"

Cole slumped in the huge embrace. "You make it sound like we're dating. It's more like we're married, by now. You're either duty-bound to always look at me funny, or never do it ever. Isn't that right?"

He could have fallen over from the sheer force of laughter that erupted from Vandham then. "You don't need to put a label on it, for cripes' sake! Come on, let's get to Garfont. Yew 'n' Zuo picked me up another kiddo we've gotta situate."

Once they'd arrived at their founded haven, Cole saw that he'd a bit of goading to do on the count of that "situation". Said kiddo was a petite little thing, with chubby legs and wide eyes, but she was absolutely adorable if she was even primly presentable. "Roughed up from the refugee struggles," one of the mercs said, and "Still goin' on..." another answered the unspoken question.

"What's your name?" Cole asked, and she chirped back "Iona" through the twinge of weepiness. Vandham looked like a kid about to ask for extra allowance money as he sized up his partner's reaction.

So, Cole obliged him with almost admirable breeziness.

"You know, I had a friend like you once. Well, but she couldn't have looked or sounded any less like you. My point is, she would have taken little Iona in. Why don't we do the same?"

Vandham's eyes? Basically ka-ching.

And so they did, and she was a darling, and Roc positively excelled at being the cool older sibling-adjacent figure and caretaker, and it was a happy thing made out of tragedy because that was so very often what all found families were.

A mysterious visitor came to the playhouse one day, perhaps some hundreds of years later. Vibrant and striking as ever, a woman of unparalleled beauty, grace, and intelligence. Cole knew her in an instant; one needed only to be a living soul in Alrest to do so.

He didn't expect that she would remember him. Quite literally, it was impossible; Brighid would never be of the mind so impulsive as to turn to ulterior methods of preserving a Blade's memory span. But, contrary to his expectations, she stepped into the back hall, as guided by the Iona of the age, with purpose and cautious familiarity.

Pause a moment for that descriptor: Iona herself, the bright blue dove of a girl he and Vandham had first cared for, grew into a lovely and serene young woman, her only vestige of sass lying in her penchant for calling Cole "Grandpa" as she grew older and he began to really look it, even if only slightly (but then, by now...). She lived, she laughed, she loved, and then, like all humans, some time long after Vandham had gone and she had awakened Roc, as seemed to be a bit of a family tradition, she died, leaving only charm and charity in her wake. Was it a little selfish and a little grimly patterned for Cole to want to keep another young person like her around ever after? Perhaps, but he did it anyway.

But back to Brighid. "You are Cole, are you not?" He had stood when she entered - never be seated when a lady enters the room, of course - and now wished fervently for the erstwhile desk to repose pensively against.

"I know you, Brighid. And, I know your questions. To you...no, I'm not Cole."

The way he spoke the words was wrong, he knew, almost condescending, and he kicked himself for it. "I take that back. To you, I'm not anyone."

Brighid smiled at him and put her own flaming hand to chin. "I wouldn't say 'not anyone,' no. To me, you're a very intriguing author who penned one of the oldest volumes I own, practically the only one besides my own journals."

Ah. Maybe, maybe not. Cole gave a quiet nod. "I don't quite remember how I signed that one. Would you remind me?"

"Minoth," she said, just as quietly, nigh reverently - he would have thought that that wasn't her way, wouldn't ever be her way, and yet there it was. "I would say that I haven't said that name in a long time, much as you would probably say that you haven't heard it in just as long, but I find myself repeating it under my breath each time I awaken and peruse the shelf where my journals are kept."

He raised an aged eyebrow. "Each time you awaken, huh? And, if you don't mind my asking, just how would you know that?"

"I write it down," was her simple reply. "I write down many things that pertain to my memory and how it is maintained. It is something that I must protect, is it not?"

"Indeed. It is...what you must protect. But what about who you must protect, eh? Who's the Emperor of this age who happens to be humoring your whim to come out to the capital of your national rival and chat with a has-been playwright?"

Brighid didn't bristle at his terming it a "whim" as she might have done those many, many years ago. Instead, she simply called towards the hall outside: "Lady Mòrag?"

Said lady passed briskly in with arms held behind her back at a half-formal parade rest. A boxy cap rested firmly atop a dark head of hair, and her vestments were crisp and admirable even of themselves.

Brighid took her arm in contented satisfaction. "You were right, this is him. The one who wrote that manuscript I always used to read to you when you were much younger."

Mòrag titled her head almost imperceptibly, then righted herself to equilibrium (it seemed that she never strayed far or for long) and offered a gloved hand in grateful, though professional, greeting. "Mr. Cole? I've heard much about you - well, of a sort. It's an honor."

"Please, please," he began, shaking his head wistfully but taking the proffered hand anyway, "none of that 'mister' business, or the honor either. The pleasure's all mine."

When their handshake had been released, Mòrag made her own gesture of careful thought. What was that, an imperial tradition? Its faint skew from the normalized posture that Hugo, Aegaeon, and Brighid had all shared was indicative of the fact that she probably wasn't Emperor, after all - Empress, in fact, as it were.

She interrupted his musings with the delivery of said thought. "If you don't mind my saying so, you must have been alive a long time to have been able to gift that manuscript to Brighid so many incarnations ago. I hope time has served you well."

Cole chuckled softly. Ah, what a sentiment. "What time hasn't served me, my lady, love has done just as well. I merely hope now to pass it on to young people like yourself."

Mòrag smiled. "I'm not so young. But then, to you, I must be..."

In a moment of curious maudlin emotion rather unlike him, Cole just had to say it: "I was born, as ever a Blade can be, near about five hundred years ago, now. My Driver was Prince Addam Origo, one of the last surviving members of the Tornan royal family. Have you heard of him?"

"Of course. His descendants are those who now populate the Titan Genbu, and the kingdom of Tantal. But surely, if you are to ask me that, then something must be amiss in my understanding."

"Amiss indeed," Cole said, resting his eyes shut for a brief second. "Addam didn't found Tantal. That would have been his uncle, forced to usurp the glory of a far nobler name in order to gain back any shred of respect and esteem, while our family worked the land in Leftheria. Haven't you ever wondered why they call that village Hero's Rest?"

"And did you name it such?" Mòrag asked, a tinge of amusement decorating her forthright voice as she jumped to the correct conclusion.

"I-- Maybe. Maybe I did. I never want to alter history when I write, but with him...well, let's just say I get a little teary-eyed when I think back to those days."

"So Brighid has told me. 'The thought of living on without her does not appeal to me.' Isn't that right, Brighid?"

Gently departing from her idle occupation of gazing pseudo-wide-eyed at the vast collection of stuffs in the room, the Blade gave her Driver and their host a sorrowful smile.

"Indeed, Lady Mòrag. It's...I don't wish to put a more pat description on it now." Oh, how time had seen the Fire Blade grow.

"I hope you can make the most of your time together, then. And if it happens to stretch on longer than anyone could have anticipated, well..." He winked the scarred eye, and lifted his hand in questioning gesture so as to take one of Brighid's and press a kiss to the back, then hold the same between both of his. "I'll never tell."

Again, love this by redsixwing.

I will leave you with this listening material:

- Xander - Dvořák: "American" Quartet
- Minoth - Bernstein: On the Waterfront Symphonic Suite
- Flora - Vaughan-Williams: The Lark Ascending
- Addam - Beethoven: Violin Concerto
- Mythra - Ravel: Tombeau de Couperin
- Haze - Debussy: Printemps
- Malos - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 12
- Lora - Elgar: String Serenade
- Jin - Strauss: Death and Transfiguration
- Aegaeon - Ravel: Mother Goose Suite
- Brighid - Stravinsky: 1919 Firebird Suite
- Hugo - Dvořák: New World Symphony
- Azurda - Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2
- Roc - Ravel: String Quartet in F Major
- Vandham - Holst: The Planets
- Amalthus - Messaien: Les Offrandes Oubliées
- Mikhail - Ravel: Miroirs
- Milton - Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf

My humblest thanks, as always, for reading! Every kudo, bookmark, and comment makes my little heart flutter with joy, so if you feel compelled to leave any or all of those, please go ahead and do so!