sometimes cinnamon-flavoured toothpaste feels like the wind in your hair

You know when you've just been to the dentist, and they've got done with scraping your teeth, down to the barest tingles of what you're quite comfortable with feeling, and you can hardly stand the thought of running your tongue over them, because it feels like they're about to fall out?

You know they're clean, and you know they're very securely not going to fall out, and teeth are meant to be cleaned, dentists wouldn't be in business without them, and you've got to eat again sometime...

That's what Kasumi's been feeling for each of the past five or six awakenings, shrouded in the mist of uncertainty as to who she is.

She's a Blade, she knows that much, and her element is Wind, and if she concentrates hard enough she can shackle down the ether-based movements of other Blades - even their Drivers, sometimes, depending, but that happens very, very seldom - but it's always...tense. She's pulling the constriction, teasing it, out of her Core, rather than the wind flowing through her, bending to her will. One would think that would be a good thing, right? Self-actualization, self-sufficience, is quite the thing.

Identity and memory are...quite the thing. All Blades know that, though some Common Blades find themselves not caring, so much. Not until they're fading away on their last breaths, and they make the maudlin laments: "I'll miss you!" "I'll never forget you." "I'll cherish my memories."

Awful, isn't it? Not only are they patently wrong just on the face of it, the very fact of their existence, they could very well wind up being, if you'll pardon the expression, dead wrong. At least, that's what Kasumi's afraid of. That when she finally latches on to a Driver whose influence will resonate with her enough (truly, that's the thing) to sculpt out her face from cold blue jade, from clean stolid data, into a person, one who lives and breathes and can function at a fuller capacity away from their Driver than a common rank ever could, she'll lose herself. And then who will she be?

How does she even know how to fear it? Each time she dies, she doesn't have those nascent jitters, that vibrant trepidation of not knowing where it's safe to step, because a Blade dying by dint of their Driver passing on nearly always goes peacefully, doesn't feel the violence of a snapped bond; they were created to mimic humans, and since humans hardly ever die instantaneously, neither do Blades. They fade with the blood of the body, the firmament of the flesh.

No one asks a Common Blade how many times they've been awakened, either. There's nothing distinctive enough about them to merit even bothering; most just have the same basic variations of a headpiece, perhaps a slightly different shape to their eyes or cadence to their voice, and, for the female body type, a skirt that flares with varying volume. Their temperaments are different - some more brash, some more timid, some inexplicably unattuned to battle altogether - but they are not recognized as having personalities that are worth paying attention to regardless.

Why? Why not? There's no answer. There's never an answer, with humans. They know even less about Blades than Blades know about themselves. And yet, they won't listen. They won't listen when a Common Blade talks.

This Kasumi thinks, knitting her fingers together and being all but swallowed up by her titanically looming guilt that if you let go of the Blade you are now, you will have done a tremendous disrespect, if not a full disservice, to the Blade whose body you inhabit. You'll have been just the same as all the others who didn't want to listen to her.

Her? You? It? They?

Are you the same one? Are you not? Whose body dies, when the life-cycle ends? Is it the last Blade? The first? All those immemorialized in between?

I've not reached the full extent of my powers, one half of her argues. You never will, and be glad of it, says the other half. That's a dangerous ability you have. One day it may be used to hurt someone, or many people. And then where will you be?

Kasumi's system clock ticks, and ticks, and ticks, and tells her, it'll be time soon, you'll need to make that big leap. The region of Torna around which she's most often passed is home to mercenaries, simple types, and even though they're not fighting some particularly calamitous war, it's rare for one to live to any ripe old age. She spends the century and a half between 3400 and 3550 (give or take a decade, there on the far end) fighting every awakening's desperate urge to fully engage with a Driver, and every time, by the time her next number is up, she wonders if she should have gone for it, after all.

They're all so straightforward, if not so righteous, and a headstrong version of herself would likely do well against being abused in the future, even if...well, even if they were mostly men, it's not as if a female Common Blade suddenly becomes overtly masculine depending on their awakener. That's silly, isn't it?

Isn't it?

Isn't it so clear, Kasumi? The only mistake you're making is waiting. Eventually, your window will close, and you'll be stuck with the next slimy bigot who picks you up. Do you trust so deeply in the Architect, in what he has planned for you? Are you such a steward of his design?

Of course I do. Of course I am. I must be. I...I must be. And yet...what am I? What am I meant to do? Who am I meant to be?

Kasumi falls away in the spring of 3559, Driver poisoned by a Brog in Heblin because Blade wasn't able to stop it. Next time, she thinks. I don't remember what I swore to myself last time, and however many other times before, but...next time. No matter who, no matter when, no matter where. I have to know. I have to.

Later that month, she is not found by another traveler, in fact, but by a fat shopkeeper whose sniveling teenage daughter went walking in the woods and found just such a shiny rock as was Kasumi. Diamond patterns spangle across her Core, gentle and constant, and the girl tries the brooch on against her generous breast. Oh, god, Kasumi thinks, not this. I don't want to look like her - my sincerest apologies, madam, why, I'm sure you're lovely, but I-I don't...and with that personality...

Next time, you said. Rather, next time, she said, because she's not quite conscious enough, of the oath and of her own self, to think it, to drag the ball and chain across the annals of her mind. So Kasumi shrinks down into her Core and wills the ether to remain dormant, and we allow her to do so. We understand, don't we? It's perfectly reasonable.

By and by, the girl becomes bored with the cut of the gem-not-gem, and hands it off to her father. "A Blade," she says dismissively, "and we don't have the resources to keep up with one of those." A maid, Kasumi would have been, and the insult is backhanded in that the shopkeeper keeps a modest house, too modest to need any other servant therein. Indeed, the girl wishes she had a reason to hold on to such a trinket, but she doesn't, and she knows it. Into the inventory Kasumi goes.

Before the better part of a week has gone by, the two fated travelers arrive in the shopping district. They're surreptitious, Jin in the mildest cloak possible and Lora with her dullest old skirt, but they're certainly distinctive nonetheless. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, Lora scans the stalls, looking for anything interesting to brighten their day that won't break the proverbial bank.

Bread, fine poultry, stiff cloth and perky ribbons, embroidery floss, turmeric and saffron in colors just to match...all of it looks wonderful, and Lora refrains from pointing out anything because if she chose just one thing, why, she'd have to choose them all. The jeweler's shop (yes, yes indeed) has quite a many things arrayed as well, but Lora has never had much interest in that aspect of femininity, and she very nearly glosses over the whole thing, when--

"Jin, look!" Attentive to her hushed whisper, Jin looks, and sees the Core Crystal in a glass case off to one side without Lora's even needing to point it out.

"Isn't that horrid? Selling a Blade, and in a shop like that - when they're awakened, it'll probably be by some stuffy old society woman. What if they hate it?"

Jin raises an eyebrow; the mask shifts ever-so-subtly to accommodate. "I don't remember you taking the time to ask me that."

"Oh-!" She swats the side of his arm. "I was ten years old, Jin!"

Right. Fair enough. "Whatever you say, Lora."

"Whatever I say, huh? Then..." She's got both hands clasped behind her back now, teeth nibbling her bottom lip and eyebrows set fiendishly a-wriggling. After several moments more devilish deliberation, she shoots up straight again, brings the hands forward and gives them a clap. "I'm gonna do it."

"Gonna do what-" "Stay here!" "-Lora!?"

There are just enough other patrons milling in the market square for Lora to beat in with all haste, summarily unnoticed, and the case isn't locked because the shopkeeper doesn't want to appear overly fastidious, so by the time she's darted back to Jin's position, he's already begun moving out of the town, double time.

They're far, far too coordinated at things like this, aren't they?

On they run, hand in hand (in hand), Lora cradling the Core to her chest with the other hand and Jin clutching at what amounts to only the wind with the other. Eventually, they're out, into those very woods, and they slow down to make their final paces to a clearing where a campfire used to be.

"Well...?" says Lora expectantly. "Well, indeed," returns Jin, palming off his mask and shaking out his hair with a half-disappointed half-exhilarated sigh. "Now what?"

Caught with the ball in her court, Lora fumbles. "O-oh. Well, I..."

"Go on." If it weren't maddening, it might even be amusing. "Genuinely, Lora, I'm sure they won't hate you as much as they would have hated some rich master." Master. Tch. Masters and slaves. That's all they are. Maybe not when it came to Lora, but...still.

That endorsement is all it takes to steel Lora in her most independent of foundations. She runs careful thumbs over the divining facets one more time before pulling off her gloves and holding the crystal in to her chest once more.

Throughout all the rustling, Kasumi had yet slept, ever since her frantic staving of resonation with said pompous rich girl, but now, held warm and tight above the sternum protecting one of the purest hearts in Alrest, she stirs.

The buzzing comes, almost threatening in its immediacy. If Blades unawakened could breathe, she would be practically panting. Aches, shooting pains, unfamiliar tastes, decisions, decisions, decisions...

Oh. There. I'm not alone. Lady...Lady Lora is here. She's kind, and gentle, but she's not afraid of, oh, anything - well, maybe there are some things, but I can help her with those! Oh...oh, I like her very much! Next time, indeed!

The wind gusts, the trees shimmer, Jin and Lora both shake in the sudden tremor, and then...there is Haze. Wide pants, delicate halo, lustrous braids, prim smock, tidy boots, graceful sleeves, golden crown tying it all together to a perfect point. Oh, she can barely stop herself from grinning, and clings tight to her crosier to keep from jumping up and down in delight.

Me! I'm Haze! I'm here, and so have the winds arrived, with me!

Lora watches the newly born Blade display her arms to herself, one to either side, and pat at the chest of her smock and run her hands through her hair (for this, she had handed her crosier to Jin, though she hadn't the faintest why) and reach up to adjust the circlet-like headpiece, only it was already perfectly aligned heedless of the wind, and she feels, well, slightly hesitant to intervene.

"Hello," she calls at last, a question in her voice, "my name is Lora. Y-"

"Oh, I know!" Haze cries out. "You're my Driver! My first real Driver!"

"Real?" Lora lays hand to breast, as it's empty of the Core now placed in a perfect diamond upon Haze's. "What do you...?"

"I've never looked like this before," explains Haze. "Not that I know what I used to look like, and that's a little bit sad, but oh, isn't this wonderful?"

"Glad to see you're enjoying yourself," Jin remarks, but not without leaving a very obvious pause where an address to her name might have gone.

"Oh, absolutely!" Then, in practically the same breath: "What's your name?" She cocks her head to the side, retrieves the offered crosier without shifting her gaze, looks more puppy-like than even puppy-dog-like, as Lora might have twelve years prior.

"He's Jin," Lora answers for him, desperate to get another word in towards the most crucial conclusion. "But please, what is your name?"

She had already realized it, of course, blossoming clear and pure as the dew of a new day, but now she has the chance to say it! Out loud! For Lady Lora!

"I'm Haze!" she cries, positively jubilant. At last, the crosier falls forgotten to the ground, and she surges in to wrap both arms around Lora's neck and shoulders. I'm Haze, I'm Haze, I'm Haze!!!

"It's lovely to meet you, Haze," Lora mumbles from where she's slowly unfurling her own arms to pat at Haze's back, where her hair has fallen. Truly, she's just as excited, but the confounding overwhelm of it all has her, well, a bit stunned.

"Oh, Lady Lora..." What is it, Haze? Do you want to know who am I, who Jin is, where we are, where we're going? Oh, gosh, I hadn't even thought about all that. What if she doesn't like us, after all?

Haze pulls back, clasping at Lora's hands, and Lora is thrilled to reciprocate even through her befuddlement. Jin watches on, only partially able to predict what comes next.

"You smell lovely."