I have an irrational fear of October

Chapter 03: sticks and stones may break my bones, but... [2022-05-29]
Chapter 04: trust fall [2021-09-26]
Chapter 06: touch and go [2022-01-19]
Chapter 08: coughing up a lung [2022-06-03]
Chapter 09: rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated [2021-11-13]
Chapter 12: it'll be fun, they said [2021-11-03]
Chapter 15: feed a cold, starve a fever [2022-06-28]
Chapter 20: lost and found [2022-06-27]
Chapter 21: that's where the blood's supposed to be [2022-05-23]
Chapter 26: you will go down with this ship [2022-05-31]
Chapter 27: i'm fine. i prom-- [2021-11-04]
Chapter 28: it's not just in your head [2022-02-11]
Chapter 29: all work and no play [2022-05-23]
Chapter 30: digging your grave [2022-06-27]
Chapter 31: hurt and comfort [2022-02-20]
Chapter 32: can't say no to you [2021-08-28]

It doesn't happen the first night, because somehow Minoth has a feeling the plot would have disagreed with that, and it doesn't happen the next night either, because there are only so many beds in the inn and before you go any further with that thought, look. They're both over six feet tall. Bed-sharing just logistically is not an option. Keep dreaming. Literally.

But the third night, they're out in Dannagh, and Minoth's just settled himself down with one leg propped over the opposite knee and his hands nestled underneath the base of his scalp to keep the ponytail from jutting against the ground when exactly one beaming bastard prince of Torna flops unceremoniously down next to him. "Hello."

"You need something, Addam?" Minoth drawls without cracking an eye. Addam's always been sort of definitionally endearing, just goofy enough not to seem like a stuffed-shirt with his received pronunciation and all, and just wise enough not to seem like a bumbling idiot. Indeed, it's that exact combination of traits that he's displaying right now, the accidental wile of someone always genuine to a fault when they get the right audience for it. And Minoth...well, he never thought he'd be the right audience for...anything. Call it voyeurism and all, we've been through it enough.

So Addam, in this guileless mood of his, simply replies, "No, not in particular. I just thought since you're one of us now," and his smile is painfully wide as he says it, "I should, you know, check in with one of my men. See how he's faring."

Internally, Minoth groans. Somehow he knows, he just knows, that Addam never "checks in" with any other member of his militia, or even their current ringed-about nine, in quite this way. Young as he is, most of them, the likes of Noowl, are even younger, and those that are older, like Augustus or, Architect forbid, Mungo (hey, Minoth's taking a sloppy mental roll for outliers, forgive him the awkward indiscretion), are very obviously not either lended or tended for or to it. Oh, and Kaleena, probably, right? The thought of a woman being in his place hadn't even crossed his mind. Well. Whatever that means.

And now, outwardly, Minoth says, "He's faring just fine. Now will you leave off?"

Addam frowns. "Alright. If you say so." But he doesn't immediately get up. Curse the hesitance, the hesitation, always.

To match the inaction-action, Minoth sighs. His eyes are still closed, because Addam's pitifully easy to read from sound and feel alone. "That really all you wanted, Prince?"

Addam doesn't bother skirting around the actual expletive of a positive or a negative. "It's cold out here." In the desert? Yes. That's fair, the temperature fluctuates full across the scale at the diametrically opposed points of the clock. "And I missed you."

Is that fair? Is that extortion? Doesn't quite matter, does it? Minoth retrieves an arm from its position of repose and holds it aloft to make way, and Addam immediately wriggles closer.

"Thank you, Minoth," he murmurs into the general vicinity of the faintly thrumming Core Crystal.

If Minoth's arms weren't full, he'd have shrugged his acknowledgement, but, perhaps fortunately, perhaps unfortunately, the moment isn't quite so obliging to his wishful, even willful, reticence. Ah, well. "Can't say no to you, my prince."

It's just an accident. Just a fluke. The plateau upon which the Verdant Fairylands sprawl just so happen to be home to Prism Poppies, Addam's one allergy and, besides his inhibitions, his one greatest hostile fear.

Just a little piquant surprise that Addam sneezes, stumbles, slips, vanishes over the edge of the cliff with nary an intoned cry to mark his disappearance. Mythra notices, somehow, tenses and twitches her head to the side at the influx of entropy in the area. Her eyebrows and ears pull back in sync and she blinks, hard, fast, at Minoth. What does she-- Oh, God.

She didn't notice because she's the Aegis, she noticed because he's her Driver. And he's Minoth's Driver too. So.

To the edge he goes. The edge of the land, the edge of his mind, the edge of the world. They came up here borne upon Aegaeon's waterspout, and the metered drop down to shaded sand is way too long, way too viscious.

What's down there? Well, just sand. Maybe some Caterpiles, and those would hurt to land on, and the Scorpox could get tetchy, but they're all still just big bugs, and Addam isn't exactly scared shriekish of the creepy-crawlies like Haze is.

Addam isn't really scared of a lot of things. He's afraid of falling asleep mid-pace because of the anaphylaxis, and he's afraid of Mythra. But as Minoth throws his boots at the ground, stride after stride, to make it to the cliff face in time, Addam's fear shoves itself hard and cold and ugly and lost into his Core.

It's just falling. It's just tripping and then not finding the floor as fast as you'd expect. When they'd still been philandering in Aletta, Addam had fallen off the Titan's ribs more than once, and uttered a comical cry of "Agh, but how?!" each time. How? You're careless, and you take a funny tumble. No bones broken, just wounded pride.

But Minoth isn't laughing now.

He pulls at the shaking hands, wiry muscled arms, with strength he didn't know he had, strength he thought he'd lost. Tenuousness hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, and there's a pounding in his ears because there's a pounding in his Core that you're going to drop him you're going to drop him you're going to drop him he's going to DIE don't you dare let go, don't you dare get ashamed to care--

"Architect damn it, Addam, why didn't you say anything?" Which is a stupid thing to say, but Minoth can't help but be angry that this was so passive, so implicit.

Addam's forehead is flushed gray to match his hair, matted down over it. His hands are clutching over Minoth's shoulders, now. His lower half gets drawn up as the Flesh Eater straightens, lever arm with crucial payload.

"I- I don't know. I'm sorry, you're right, I should have, but after all I just slipped, and really, I wish you wouldn't have worried, and-" Damn it again. Having him apologize is almost worse, and that wasn't even really Minoth's point.

But he forgets all about guilt, pinned to either party, because they're staring nose to nose and Addam is all but cradled in Minoth's arms and lap, and the next most sensible thing to do is lie back and away from the drop, actually. But he doesn't. They don't.

"It's not so far, down to the streamsand," Addam starts, coyly. "It's soft, and I'm soft, I would have been alright."

He's probably fallen some dozen times, playing out here as a child, or somewhere exactly similar in Leftheria. The resonance had sketched up hyperbole, maybe. That's annoying.

"I think you would have just missed me too much, if I'd fallen. It is a bit of trek up here, after all."

Again, stupid, frivolous set-chewing talk, but Minoth loves that silly smile and he's glad they're not sitting here in too much of anger before Mythra storms over to take stock and he's got to front up.

Addam's right here, he's right here, he's so close, and he is soft, not just in the head, his hair is soft as Minoth's hand, unfortunately still covered by the glove, strokes through it, and he's so warm, not just from the heat of the day. He's not bruised, only a little scuffed on the forearms and a little scraped where his armor plates have dug in to places they weren't meant to bend into.

He doesn't look frightened, anymore, he just looks happy. But Addam always looks happy. Doesn't he? Doesn't he always look like this? He's watching something, a nervous energy animating his brow, and then a careful index finger comes poking in at the corner of Minoth's lips. Why on earth...?

Oh. He's smiling. He hadn't even noticed. The same consideration of Addam always looking happy flicks back in at the corner of Minoth's mind: so do you, probably, when you're with him. Even when you'd just recovered from thinking he was going to meet his end inside an Aspar's jaws and your Driver, the one and only one you actually wanted, was going to vanish, leaving you with Mythra in some unknowable state.

Why did it always have to be circumstances like this that found them together?

"If you'd fallen, I guess I would have just had to follow." The backdoor admission: yes, I would have.

Fear and uncertainty passes from blue eyes to golden ones, and then again back to forth. No, I wouldn't have. I'd have been too afraid, for...whatever this is.

For a moment, Minoth considers keeping Addam collected up in his arms as he turns and stands to walk back to the rest of the group, who by now are surely wondering what goes on. Because god, having him so close is having the world, his world, in and on his arms and heart. Hell if he knows why.

But he can't, he knows he can't, Mythra and Brighid would needle endlessly and it would be too unearthly weird and baggage-bagged-up to deal with now. So, he tables the emotions, claps his hand roughly against the side of Addam's face - almost like cupping his cheek with every tenderest touch, but only almost - and desposits the wayward prince on his ass in the grass before standing and offering him a hand up.

Just an accident. He wishes it were a happier one. But...no, the smile blossoms on his lips again as he watches Addam dust himself off, and even if Lora and Haze are peering over, he doesn't care, he grasps at the connecting hand once again and kisses the back with a purposeful flourish.

"At your service, my prince." And Addam, ever-earnest, grins back and holds his hand, palms his whole heart into it, says, "I know you are. And I love you for it." Which is, oh, such another other other stupid awkward thing to say because real resonated Blade or not he's not here for indentured servitude, but what Addam's really saying is I love when you call me yours, because I am, I am, I am.

If your entire world falls off a cliff, your entire world has definitionally tipped off its axes. One trusts the reference frame without question. One cannot but trust it. And yet, Minoth looks at Addam, clenches his fingers tight into the intertwine, and knows he's made a choice. The hard part is to keep making it, no matter what obstacles, occupying space positive or negative, taking form weathered or not accidental, come their way.

"Okay," Mythra says, amid the Artifices' hellrain that they've only just recently and most immediately staved. She's steadying herself just as much as she is making a proclamatory opening to shake them all on their foundations, to rock impression into their souls. "So Addam will face off with Malos first, and then halfway through we'll confuse him by tossing you my sword."

Oh, the smirk is dangerous. Remember those foundations, Mythra? Please stick to them. Please stick down, don't fly away from him. From us. I meant to say us. Why did I say him?

"Easy peasy." And lemon squeezy and all, so Minoth knows he looks like he's bit into one.

Addam, however, is unbothered. "Right!" he claps, verbally as much as physically. "Let's go, team!" And oh, for the love of...not you too, with the arrogance. I've got it, I know, but at least I hide it. At least I hate myself.

What?

Rather than continue stewing, Minoth pipes in his own two cents. "What do I do?"

"Backup," Mythra answers automatically. It isn't really, hasn't really been, the de facto, because Addam likes to try to show just as much equality as Lora does, or doesn't, which is to say that his favoritism is tempered by his fear, but Minoth resigns himself to it anyway. Right. Backup. Bit part.

Not like he wants fame, but standing back and out of it still...stings. If things go wrong, it may not even help for him to rush in later. He'll just be standing there, watching the drama unfold. Helpless. Useless.

Aren't you just so?

But backup the directress has requested, nay demanded, and so backup Minoth will play. They enter the sand gardens, and Malos is there, cocky in stance and in voice (everything with the duality, here, and oh, wouldn't that bother him to know that he's struck into parallels, and with the do-gooders - goody-two-shoes, in fact, so that's another double for you - at that).

"Hello, partner," he drawls. Might as well have said howdy, if you think us so colloquial. If we're such pals. He barely spares Minoth a glance, focusing instead on Mythra, Addam, and Jin, and so Minoth marks it well. He doesn't know I'm here, so that's the element of surprise. If I ever play into it at all. Saves computation, don't it? It's all for nothing.

Before he knows it, the scene has advanced. The other teams are ringed back and around, and Addam is rushing in, trading blows both verbal and brutal. For all that Addam's sword is as tall as he is and appropriately broad to accompany, Malos's is just, somehow, bigger. The roaring flame does nothing to diminish that fact, of course.

They yell about heritage and consequences and the truth of what humans are. Minoth wants to vomit, it's so like Amalthus, but he's got to play backup, whatever that means, so without thinking he grabs onto the nearest stabilizer. It's Mythra, and her head only comes up to the perfect height to be circled in by his gauntlets while his knives hang out casual somewhere over her face. Cute, ain't it?

"Can you not?" Teenager. Adolescent. Willful, whippish, wanton girl. And if we cared about each other any more it'd snap us in two. You know that, don't you?

Please know that. Mythra.

"Stop squirming," mutters Minoth. He hates how harsh, how dismissive it sounds. To amend: "If anything happened to you, Addam would kill me." It's an odd, cartoonish sentiment, one that doesn't really quite paint in to their group's general, usual, outward strokes. It's nice to believe, though, isn't it?

(Did you really just romanticize a statement carrying bearing on your own death?)

Mythra does stop squirming, though, if only to kick her heel back into his shin. Bark it. Bark it all with not half the motive bite. "If anything happened to YOU," and now her tone bites, "Addam would kill ME, and right now I'm pretty goddamn chill with both of those possibilities."

"Wh- why would you--" And then Minoth looks up. Focuses, again. Addam and Malos are no longer sparring; the sandboxing-sandbagging is gone. Instead, both of the broad-shouldered figures with chests twice as broad are facing them, and the crest of Addam's head is even lower below Malos's than anything that could be called usual.

Malos's armored forearm is laid across his throat, metal scraping against the prominence in the middle. Minoth feels it, viscerally, and he knows Mythra feels it too: when you choke on a bit of apple, and it won't go down, and you swallow and swallow and you only seem to be suffering more with each attempt at amelioration. Addam's face is always a little red, but even from across the garden turned battlefield the growing tinge is visible.

"Hello? Anybody home over there?" He sounds bored. Wickedly bored and flippant, while Addam is quite literally choking to death under his grasp.

Something tenses at Minoth's shoulder blades, and it's not the ether deposits. Instead of flinging his arms away from Mythra's head, he lowers them down to her shoulders, and squeezes at the bare openings. Her own tension rings back into his palms, wiry and volatile.

If they move, Addam's going to die. That much is painfully clear.

"Cat got your tongue?" Malos tries again. His confidence has slipped, just a touch, at the determination radiating off of Addam's Blades. He hasn't gotten his way instantaneously, this time. That's a first. Plenty of those, for this evening.

"You're going to kill him, aren't you? If we get any closer."

Malos's nose comes down out of the air, and his chin sets back with his grin. Here's to cheshire, and there's to cheese. And take me back to the old library, it'd certainly be better than this.

No exclamation comes from Addam, because he's trying to conserve his precious air. His eyes, golden eyes, say to be calm, be sanguine like I'm not, and certainly don't be so exsanguine as he's being. We never should have let me go in alone. I hate for you to have to watch this, and I hate for you to have to watch me watch you watch this.

(They don't say that everything will be okay. Addam knows that he doesn't know that.)

Where's Lora? Where's Jin, and Aegaeon, and Haze, and Hugo, and Brighid? Where are the kids?

Locked in safe with the Gargoyles, pings an answer out of nowhere. She's right. They're being detained with perfect care and decorum.

And meanwhile, Addam is being, more or less, tortured. While Mythra and Minoth watch, because they're too scared shitless to do anything else.

Mythra's own sword blares in her hand, the ether-green fire itching to leap out. Minoth's hands tic to fidget with the locking mechanism on his guns, but he doesn't do it. Motion. Motion the harbinger of diving to your death.

"I'm not going to kill him," Malos announces, finally. "I'm going to kill you. A fun twist, isn't it? For the humans that want so badly to die."

Mythra didn't say what she said because of Foresight. She just knew that something...something bad was going to happen, and no matter how singular the two of them were outside of the regular frame of Blade to Driver, the instinct was there. Protect him, above all else. Always.

Please, don't let's have always end now. Another two weeks would be nice, I think.

And so that's Malos's threat. Will they, as Blades, except not quite Blades, both his partners in some form or another, rush to their own certain destruction to save a human who'd, apparently, toss them aside like rubbish if he wasn't able to keep them in storied possession?

Of course they will. Because it's Addam. And because they've really not got anything else to live for, save perhaps for each other. They could never go out any other way.

Minoth releases Mythra completely, now, and she doesn't spring forward, only up and onto her toes. The great blade flares. Minoth's own bullets shuffle into their rightful ring, and he kicks the magazine against the heel of his boot. If the idle idiosyncrasies scare Malos, it's impossible to tell. His mortal grip budges not an inch.

Mythra and Minoth share a glance. Down to up, up to down, in to out and out to in. You're not Jin and Haze, you're not Brighid and Aegaeon. You're Mythra and Minoth, you're Addam's Blades, whatever the fuck that means, and so you'll do this. Of course you will.

Set the paces, one, two, three, make formation, vanguard and rear, and lights, and camera (oh, if the lord is watching...), and--

"Stop!"

Minoth stops, mid-lunge. Mythra stops, mid-dart. Well, okay. Maybe it was a little stupid, to send both of them, us, in again. But Mythra's too small and Minoth's too weak for any other plan. Come on, Addam, trust in our strategy. What ever happened to "Let's go, team!"?

(You know exactly what happened, you idiots. The three of you, all so fragile. All so stupid. All so weak.)

But Addam wasn't calling out directions from across the field, no. He was pleading for Mythra and Minoth not to throw their lives away, lives that could be lived perfectly well without him (well...), for his own human folly.

(Why the past tense, here? Because it only serves to highlight the diminuity. One single shout, impotent. He's, he'd, hardly the breath for any more, when usually you can't stop him carousing. Fitting, isn't it?)

How had it happened so unearthly fast? One moment they'd been locking blades, strength matched as much as could ever matter, and the next Addam had been disarmed and nearly dismembered (which is to say, decapitated, but the other is more parallel, isn't it? so let's hope Malos doesn't plan for that next).

Suddenly, there's a light in Malos's hand. Well, it's not a light, more a dark, but it sparks and it burns and even though Dark Blades aren't too terribly uncommon, it's still not natural parlance to describe anything made of that violet abscess as bright.

Addam's hair, gray and anti-grim, flecks purple. Closer, closer, Malos's open palm hovers, and the tips of the tufts begin to singe. Singe, yes, but there's no ash, no remains. The matter just...disappears. Minoth's eyes are destiny-tracked to the movement, but there's still some room in his vision for the concept that Malos's hand could near about crush Addam's entire skull. He won't, of course, though. He'll simply cause it to cease to exist entirely.

"You said if you get any closer. But I didn't tell you what will happen if you do stay back. It's your life or his, partner. Not even life or death, huh? But still. You gotta choose!"

What kind of choice? A unilemma, when the answer is goddamned obvious. We're going in, Addam - coming in, as a matter of fact. There's nothing else to it.

Addam, for his part, still isn't struggling. He seems to have accepted that his life is forfeit, right below the auspices of Zettar's likely quite pleased rat-faced gaze. Why do you have to pick now not to bluster, my prince? We could use some of that obnoxiousness right about now. Oh, Architect, how we could use it.

Mythra runs faster than Minoth, even though his legs are so much longer, and she gets up in Malos's face first. One clever (can we say careful? careful!) swipe of her sword, and his brutish hand has been separated from the crown of Addam's head, but the other is still locked tight around his throat. Addam's knees shake only faster, only queasier, and he tries desparately to sink down, make himself small enough to slip out and away from Malos.

Then Minoth bursts in. He knows what to do. It's easy. It's the only thing he possibly could do. He takes Malos's threat and lays it back down against him, barrel to forehead. That's the right hand, anyway. The left hand goes to his Core. Ain't it so convenient that I've got two, now?

And that's the point. "You think we're weak. You think we're stupid. You think we're disorganized. But no matter how you slice it, Malos, and oh, I know how you just love to slice it, there are two of us - three of us, and nine and eleven and more - and only one of you. We may not be killers like you, but you pose a threat to something, someone, we care about. I would die for him. And it's not because I think it's funny to piss on life's fire."

He drills the barrel closer, lets the surrounding blades cut in, and out of the corner of his eye catches the tip of Mythra's ankle-cut boot going into Malos's shin, now. Aha. That's more like it.

Here, the punch line: "Not like you do. Because I'm not like you. Not like that."

Monologue over, Minoth moves before Malos can retort. Gunknives flip over, but he's not using them; the back of one fist goes bashed into Malos's face (and I hope you break your nose, you creep, maybe it'll suit you like it suits me) and the other does the same to his Core Crystal. Just enough to dizzy him, knock some bits off his block, but no wound any deeper than that. Goodness knows, they still need him to be able to teleport away.

Away he goes. Addam slumps down, with nothing holding him up but the bare gasp for breath. Mythra catches him; she'd been wrestling with Malos's arm and possibly a bit of his psyche as he contemplated whether or not he'd actually be able to disobey his programming strongly, forcefully enough to murder his partner in cold-hot ether-blood, but she hadn't been able to get a grip in at the prince's torso without opening herself up for attack.

That really wasn't so bad, was it? Alone, it would have been. For Addam, it was. But they were together. And so:

"Minoth...oh, I'm sorry you had to see that."

Minoth shakes his head, gathers Addam up into his arms. Mythra leans in too, forehead to shoulder right in the available part between the half-rate pauldrons and the arm guards. Can you not, indeed.

"Prince, I'm sorry you had to be that. You really thought we weren't going to give all in for you?"

"Well, but I thought..."

The Gargoyles have disappeared along with their master. Everyone else crowds in.

"We'll go check on the townsfolk. You stay with him," Jin directs them. Mythra makes a face at him, but Minoth knocks his knuckles knowingly on her Core, so she stays. She stays. They all sit.

"I suppose I won't say what I thought," mumbles Addam, appreciatively through all the sheepishness. Slumping down and in to catch her own long-lost lungfuls, Mythra rolls her eyes. Of course he won't. He probably didn't even have the second half of that statement prepared.

By now, Addam's shored up enough to stop borderline cuddling in to Minoth's chest, and yet he doesn't. Big baby. And Minoth lets him. Enabler, aren't you? "Fine by me. Come on, Addam. What kind of Blades would we be if we didn't protect you?"

"You'd be Mythra and Minoth, I'd say," comes the prince's coy rejoinder. Exasperated as he is, Minoth rolls with it, and leaves the guns unholstered on the ground next to Mythra's now-silent sword. Mythra and Minoth. Always have been, always will be. Sure. Fair enough.

Then, Mythra's undercurrent snipping pipes in. "Be the Aegis, they said. It'll be fun, they said. You get to go on a hike all the way around the world and beat up your brother." The normal depth of her voice returns as she finishes, "What a load of bull. I don't care about any of that. I just want to protect you guys."

Minoth eyes her warily from where his cheek is brushed up against the tickling bits of Addam's hair that have been shaved off to blunt follicle-ends. "Really?"

Caught out, her cheeks flush redder than Addam's had ever been during the asphyxiation. "I mean...whatever." Apparently she hadn't thought that they'd been listening. "That's what Jin would say, right? And you guys all want me to be more like Jin. Less fighting, more...cooking. Or whatever." Whatever.

Minoth doesn't speak, lets Addam handle it - as he should. As she should. As they should. "Mythra, it's not that I won't say Jin can be a good role model for you, but...I don't want Jin. I want you, and I want you to be happy with yourself. It's just that..."

He worries at his lip as if the words will be found there in the celly flesh, but they won't, and he knows they won't, so Minoth rubs his thumb over his prince's chin to try to distract from the distraction. It doesn't work. Wonderful.

"Malos is indeed your brother," Addam ventures at last. "Now, you've not shown signs of doing anything half so wicked as him - and purely for the thrill of it, the hell of it, it seems, too - but you certainly have the potential for it. You know what I mean?"

Mythra bites her own lip. Her gloved fingers patter noisily on her thigh. They all, all, all wear gloves, except for Lora's little squadron. What does that mean? "I guess so. But, like-- He's not right! He's not right. So I don't see how you can possibly think that I would ever do anything that stupid." Her cadence ticks huffy, there at the end.

"I don't," says Addam, softly. He's probably not lying.

"He was going to kill you."

Minoth removes a hand from Addam's shoulder and lays it gently on Mythra's. She rolls it down to give acceptance. And then she continues.

"I can't believe he was actually going to kill you. For no reason. He's so..."

Hands squeeze, all six.

"He's so STUPID. God. I could never be like him. Ever."

"That's right," Minoth confirms. "So don't be the Aegis. Be Mythra. Be a Blade. Be Addam's Blade."

"Don't like the possessive, there," she bats back. So she's learning.

"Fine then. Be a Blade for whom your Driver just so happens to be Addam. But not...not in that way," he semi-hastily adds. Technically, that's his own situation, but less (more?) technically, it's Malos's. So that's...not great.

Mythra waves away his concern regardless. "No, I know what you mean. And I meant what I said, I guess. Like, I don't want to have to do this again, but...this is the point. This is it."

Addam nods. "This is it," he too gravely intones. "And what about after?"

"Oh, forget about after," Minoth cuts in, cricking into his knees to stand them all up. "Auresco's been in for a hell of a firestorm. That's now. Are you ready?"

Addam takes his hand for an affirmation, and Minoth hooks his other elbow around Mythra's neck once again. Are you ready? Okay. Here we go.

The streamsand is the streamsand. You balance on one foot and you slide your way down. Easy, right? Simple. Normal. Fun, even.

But Addam Origo is simple, normal, fun, and easy in all the worst ways. He can't keep his balance, and down he goes. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. And possibly several ungraceful shouts.

Mythra and Minoth watch from high vantage, smirks twinned, and while the latter admonishes, "My prince, how many times did you come to see me in Indol? Quit falling down stairs, would you?" the former calls out, "Hey, how's the ground taste?"

"Dumbass," she mutters in a much softer but none less confident tone. Minoth elbows her, absently - it's half a physicalized laugh and half a shove to stop treating our Driver that way, huh? Not that he's not a dumbass, but you know. Stop.

Nevertheless, they're laughing. Brighid trots over, minx, to observe for herself, and her sneer traces out the tops of Mythra's and Minoth's still-shaking heads. "Hmm." Her tone clips. "I wouldn't have expected it of you two. It's not like you're so nimble."

The contrarian twosome share a glance. Photon-flash Mythra is persona non grata, but Minoth? Not so nimble? While Brighid's over there tripping on her ballgown? Puh-lease. So they ignore her.

They don't, however, ignore Aegaeon, who comes clanking in next to his liege with unknowable face impossibly concerned.

"Addam!" wafts the peculiar diction of Hugo's shout. "I hope you're not hurt?"

There's no answer.

"Addam, are you okay?" Lora's peering down the corridor now too, Haze gripping her hand so she doesn't take her own tumble.

Still no answer.

"Has he...moved? Like, at all?" Now the confidence has waned out of Mythra's voice as she turns her chin up towards Minoth's jaw.

It's Minoth's turn not to answer. Instead of announcing himself (which isn't really his way regardless), he wraps his hand around Mythra's wrist and yanks her after him. Easier to keep balance when you've got a partner, isn't it? Funny, that.

And Addam has indeed not moved. His shoulder is twitching, bent up righteously wrong in the heap of muscles and pewter armor, but luckily the sand is soft enough that his greatsword has simply shoved itself down, harmless. The Ropls march about, heedless. There's nothing to be bothered about, after all.

"Addam...?"

He groans. His legs don't seem to be quite out of commission, so without further comment Minoth, well, unfolds Addam from his wacked-out repose and drags him up to a standing position, lifting by the chest and not by the armpits. As soon as he's up high enough, Mythra reluctantly extends an arm to help support. Yes, the sand is soft enough for a makeshift recovery bed, but it'd tend to the deliverance of rasping burns on bare shoulders already roiled by the sun sooner than it would a peaceful backdrop for bone-setting.

Somehow, Hugo is the only one that followed them, the lift of his leg barely visible considering the lack of distance between his pelvis and the ground. Aegaeon seems to be pacing up above, less out of concern for the prince than for the emperor.

"Is he alright?" intones Hugo, desperately softly. At the familiar cadence, Addam shudders and tries to wrest open his eyes. For such a bright, sporting young chap, his eyelids and accompanying generous lashes have never seemed quite so heavy, so weighty, so dull. Is that why Zettar is the way he is, do you think?

"I'm f-fine, I prom--"

The stuttering vanishes in an instant. Deadweight Tornan, stone to the ground (except for his legs, which became jelly first to lead him there, you see).

Kneeling closer, Hugo slips off one glove and presses the back of his hand to Addam's forehead, bangs brushed aside. "He's burning up. My hypothesis is that he fell down here because he was already suffering from heatstroke. Have we got any water?"

"You left Aegaeon upstairs," Minoth points out, unhelpfully. He knows it's a rotten joke, because Aegaeon's water isn't exactly what you would call potable, but he is the keeper of the canteen nonetheless.

Hugo chuckles, dry and humorless. "I suppose I wanted to trust that the two of you could take care of him alright without our resident nosey-nurse. I know Addam can be a handful, but it's not as if you're any better, yourselves."

Say what now? Mythra gapes. "Are you trying to say that it's MY fault that he fell?" And goodness, Mythra, you could at least have leant on the collective, the group effort. You don't have to go it alone. "He's a clumsy idiot. I don't take any responsibility for, like, anything he does. That's on him."

"And yet," Hugo muses, and it almost feels dangerous, "he takes responsibility for absolutely everything you do. Have you ever noticed how fervently he apologizes to anyone you may have a run-in with in the towns?"

Well? Have you, Mythra? She squints, eyebrows settling into vibrated tension. Like she's only studied just enough of the material and the discussion's about to exit her comfortable, not to say lazy, pre-prepared bounds.

"He doesn't say 'I'm sorry for Mythra,' he says, 'I'm sorry about that.' The only time he ever pins things on you is when he's talking to you. Because he knows it's his duty to take care of you."

Do you think this is funny? Dumbass?

Now, whatever Addam knows or doesn't know is largely immaterial, because he's still slumped in an unconscious puddle of princehood there on the desert floor, but shame creeps into the atmosphere, and rather than respond to Hugo's silent accusation, Mythra nudges Minoth, who's there without any impactful actions to have ever been appropriated into any kind of consideration but who was obviously just as oblivious to the situation as she was - and he should know, even - and slowly but surely they scoop him up into a more presentable pile.

Mythra's nails dig into the fleshy part of her shoulder through her glove as she contemplates a rejoinder. Eventually, she comes up with: "Do you think Jin could freeze one of the washcloths from our supplies? So we could make sure he doesn't overheat?"

"Yes, that sounds like a good first step." Hugo's voice is warm again. Mythra shivers from the bite of the retroactive frost.

"And how about we move him into the shade, away from the local residents?" Minoth adds, gesturing with his ponytail to the grimacing komodos who've started to get interested again.

"Agreed," says Hugo. He stands, turns, trots back up and around the slope to where Aegaeon looms waiting, and confers something silent but reassured to he and their other Blade of the moment.

"Grab the sword, will you, Mythra?" There's not much else she can do at this point, because Addam's tall but after all he's only so big, but his head does loll over the back of Minoth's forearm like his legs do on the other side, so Mythra keeps a careful hand there at the base of his neck to prop it up.

Prop it up. Like he props you up. He's not always pushing you down, you know. He's trying. And so do you have to.

By the time they reach their destination, a cove of a cave buried into the underside of the fairylands' plateau, Addam has stirred, but there's still a sheen of breaking sweat across his forehead.

"You okay there, Prince?"

His eyes blink into focus. "Minoth? Huh. I thought it would have been Jin, or Aegaeon." For all his words slur, the first name is much clearer than the second two. Much more familiar. Much more treasured.

Mythra looks up from where she's arranging his legs to be less...gangly. "Can you answer the question, already?"

"Oh." The reprise comes, more distinct with each phrase: "Of course, I'm fine. I promise. Just a little fall."

Just a little thing. It's not everything. Is it?

Hugo appears in the threshold, blocking the sun somewhat. "I'm glad you're awake, old friend."

"And so am I," Addam returns. Before he can say anything more, Brighid's hair comes into view and casts the entire interior space in a wash of blue. "These imbeciles," she grits out, "were standing at the top of the streamsand and laughing at you. I really think you should know that, Addam," she continues, sweetens back into shored-up semblance. "Just so you know who it is you're dealing with."

Addam gazes at her, quizzical. Cogs, one or two or seven, are turning in his mind. "Why, thank you, Brighid. And so tell me, since you're here, what were you doing? While they were laughing? I hope you were laughing too, I'm sure it was quite amusing."

The constantly-closed eyes bury themselves tighter into absence, but only for a moment. Just one moment. "I was calling for Emperor Hugo to assist. Since he is your old friend."

"Ah. Well then." To motion away the tension, Addam pats Minoth's knee. No other reason. Just that. Minoth stays silent. "I suppose there are three kinds of friends, eh?"

"It seems like two, to me," Brighid cuts in, again frostily. "Lord Addam," comes the hasty, nasty tag.

"Indeed," says Hugo, throwing his lot in, or doing as much as, but it's highly unlikely that he knows not what he does. "Those that would lend a hand, and those that would stand aside and watch."

Now, by Brighid's account as fuses with current events, she's somewhat squarely in the latter camp, isn't she? But no matter. Let her stew.

Addam clears his throat, and this time it actually is effective at clearing the field. "Perhaps so, but I was only joking, more or less. If Hugo, Mythra and Minoth were the ones who came to my aid, then that makes three."

"But we did the same thing...?"

"Not quite, Mythra. I'm sure your whimsical retort was quite different to Minoth's, while I was in the midst of my fall."

Mythra makes a face. It was, and she doesn't want to think about the implications.

"I'd never dare to just lump the two of you in together," Addam continues, "because I know how much you would hate that."

"Addam, you don't need to--" strikes in tandem with "You're right there." And then Minoth stops, looks at Mythra, really considers what he was about to say.

He does sound a little guilty, and not just because he's currently receiving tender aftercare for a spare spell of fainting that really boils back down to falling on his ass. He shouldn't need to for any other reason. Much as a Driver shouldn't make their Blade feel that way, neither should a Blade direct undue blame onto their Driver.

"'S okay, Prince," Minoth manages at last. "Stow the math for now. I'm not too confident your soft head can handle it in its present state anyway."

Of course Addam laughs, because he's always laughing, but then the back of his head bumps against the cavern wall, and he winces. "Try not to be so funny next time, would you?"

"No can do, my prince. You're stuck with me and my inmitable wit. And Mythra calling you a dumbass, for better or for worse."

This time the face the Aegis makes is none too sourpussy. She adds her own hand to the team stack. For better or for worse, and all that.

"Well." Hugo nods, dips his chin, brisks his arms behind his waist. "Brighid, if you would?"

"But Your Majesty, are you sure Addam will be alright? He's still at least a little bit dizzy." Oh, keep reaching, Jewel.

"I think he will be perfectly fine. His Blades are taking care of him, after all. Those are the best kind of friend, I find."

And with that, Hugo offers Brighid his arm, which she cannot but accept, and Minoth and Mythra find themselves engaged in a fruitless thumb war while Addam drifts back into unconsciousness.

"I can't believe I really have to share a Driver with you," she mutters. Minoth smirks, wraps the rest of her hand into his, and closes the scene: "Neither can I. Ain't it grand?"

It's always something happening to Addam, isn't it? The poor unfortunate prince finding himself caught in circumstances far beyond his depth and ken, both intrinsically and extrinsically, needs to be fetched after, taken care of, because as much as he puts up the boldest front possible for the Tornan citizens far and wide (and doesn't even really know it's a front, because it isn't, not always) he's certainly not the strongest among them.

Well, but what does that even mean? In fact, they're all weak. They're only strong together - and not in the youthfully optimistic way. So that warms to the point: while Malos lingers petulantly, daredevilishly at the Tornan Titan's Core, the ever-faithful golden country's misfit saviors take a tackle at Herculean Gibson, out terrorizing Wrackham's moor.

The great golden Ardun stomps and it bores and it breathes toxic, restricting hot breath in their faces, but there's no challenge they can't handle, right? The roundabout nine warriors themselves?

Perhaps not so. Because the gigantic bull paws at the ground, clearly signaling something, but Addam doesn't realize quite what until he notices that it's Minoth at his rear guard, not Mythra, and the beast's horns have been lowered, and the Flesh Eater has cried out, "Addam, get back!"

Addam gets back, because he's not stupid, but maybe Minoth is, because he charges at the bull in perfect reciprocation, looking like he's ready to cattle-wrangle it. Why was the beast even targeting their flank to begin with? That should be Hugo's job, right?

Addam looks over then, and sees the Ardainians down, Haze fiddling uselessly with the gems dangling off her crosier as her healing has been rendered ineffectual and she can only wait for Hugo to catch his breath, and for Aegaeon and Brighid to do their equivalent of the same.

Mythra's dancing in the super-rear guard, still, out of sight and out of mind. Jin and Lora are chasing after the monster from behind, whips and nodachi in ever-synchronized tow.

And there is Minoth, being plowed backwards by the bull who cannot be hit, not from the front, not while it's blitzkrieging an ignoble, inglorious procession down the grassland's path with no intention of stopping until even the most useless bout of resistance has been neutralized.

So Addam watches, helpless, as Gibson keeps on plowing, and Minoth keeps on fumbling back, and eventually the Flesh Eater is tossed, golden affinity thread and all, down into the Cloud Sea. Maybe he hurtles like a deadweight mass, maybe he floats like a weightless angel. It's hard to say because it's impossible to say. He's gone too fast.

Whatever force had held him pinned to his stance as the gory event had unfolded is still keeping Addam's tongue and throat locked up closed, so he doesn't, can't cry out, but he can sense some motion in his periphery that he vaguely identifies as his own arm waving, windmilling, for Mythra to come hither.

"I saw, I saw," she snaps, and she is annoyed, doesn't really seem to care. "Why'd he have to go and do a stupid thing like that?"

Addam doesn't know. If he had to guess, he'd say it would be that Minoth's own body is the most surefire shield he can ever hope to provide, and even though that isn't saying much, it's worked, apparently. Addam is fine, nary a scratch. Gibson is still prowling, but it, he, has sensed the sudden disquiet emanating off of his erstwhile opponents, and seems almost content to trundle back to his herd with practically no harm done.

No harm done. Is it even possible? They've fallen off into the Cloud Sea, a handful at a time, more than once, but never from quite this far up, and never on the business end of a unique Ardun's tuskish horns. Is Minoth's Core even still as whole as it even has been for the past four years? Is there a ragged hole torn in his chest - two of them, speared right through the black of his jacket?

Addam doesn't know. Addam doesn't want to find out just as much as he desperately does. He doesn't clap his hands over his face and peek out through the gaps between his fingers, but isn't it just the same to stay frozen, far away from the edge, too paralyzed to move any closer?

The rest of the group mills about, Haze tending to a scrape on Hugo's cheek and Jin discussing with Aegaeon how many peds it is down, and what the most effective way to conduct a rescue is, and how much time there is left until a tide comes up and in.

"I'm sure he'll be fine, Addam," Lora says gently. As if it's normal. Addam isn't freaking out, per se, but he's not...not freaking out. Several alarm bells in his head are positively screaming. Not with blame, no, just with...fear. Doubt. Guilt. Shame. Sorrow. Pain.

Eventually, he just flops down on the ground. Is this the price of Aletta's familiarity? Complacence?

It has nothing to do with the locale, of course it doesn't (which is to say, ain't those contractions a cute little bear), but the fact of it still does hammer home a general aura of "there is no excuse". There isn't one.

So Addam sits, hugging his knees, willing things to go back to the way they were twenty minutes ago. Mythra eyes him from a few yards away, torn between two emotions neither of which she wants to let into her head. No one's gone to do anything about it. And why should they?

Why should they care about Minoth? He's been with them for the shortest time, and he has the least stake in the whole gruesome affair of all of them. He's weird, and he's more than a little skeevy, and they can get along just fine without him.

Addam can't, though. His wits' ends are brutally frayed and if he didn't have the Flesh Eater there to ground him it'd probably be him taking a dive into the clouds every three days. For no reason, really, because who says his job's so hard? But there's just...something about it.

However, when Addam Origo tells himself to stop thinking, his head really can clear. Oh, it gets hyperfixated on this or that issue and folds every relevant experience into the topic for months, mostly constructively, but when things get nasty, he knows how to shut them out. So shut them out he does, and keeps sitting, sitting, sitting. The ground is very solid. Sitting, sitting, sitting...still.

He sits for quite some time. The sun moves, but he doesn't bother to track the direction. Addam may be a sun for Minoth - have been, more like - but there's still something that's gone gray-shaded in his own world at this sudden and peculiar turn of events.

Then, suddenly, there's a commotion. Aegaeon and Haze turn on heel and sprint back towards the manor. Why ever for? Are the Armus conducting an uprising? Well. Minoth would know how to--

Damn it all. There's a sharp thudding crack as Addam slams his fist into the ground and his vambrace dents in to his glove-covered flesh. It doesn't even feel like the end. But all the details creep in, and then you know. That's how you know. That's how the world turns.

The sounds that begin to issue back to Addam's location are not, however, the clamoring moos of calves in danger. Instead, there's a rustling. A gentle booming. A jovial something that ends in a warm "-'m okay."

"Haze, I'm okay." That's what he had said. And as he lumbers back over the moor, quite clearly intent on one thing, one person, alone, Addam rises to his feet, nearly trips over them, and pivots to trap Minoth, arms over arms under arms, in a hug. He doesn't remonstrate, doesn't say, Minoth, what a stupid thing that was for you to do, and why on Alrest did you do it, just...hugs him.

Hug is such a small, juvenile word, isn't it? Hug. Its length is overly brisk, and though embrace does better in that department, it's far too clinical. If one can arrive at cynicism by and by, it's like cuddling standing up, what Addam's doing. What the both of them are doing, only the reciprocation comes a little more fragile from the incomer's side.

"Prince," Minoth murmurs, and though he doesn't sound annoyed, he doesn't sound quite comfortable with the situation either. "Can you let go?"

Addam only clings tighter. "I really don't think I'd rather be separated from you, right now."

"Addam, I'm fine." Addam doesn't seem to believe it. "Come on. Really. Everything's...peachy-keen."

Addam doesn't let go.

"My prince."

"Yes?"

"I'm alive."

"Oh, I...I know."

"And I love you."

"I know that too," Addam admits.

"So what's wrong?" Architect, how he hates playing therapist. Why can't Addam just be normal and let go of him and pretend like nothing even happened? That's what Minoth would do.

And of course Minoth's a model actor. His behavior is beyond par, beyond compare.

Sure. If you mean in a bad way. Whatever.

Addam doesn't sniffle. If he did, Minoth would have to ask Mythra to ask her father, or Siren, or whoever, to smite him down then and there. Don't make me baby you, my prince. Instead, for and from the love of god and all that's holy, his tone stills, graves, deepens.

"If you die, you'll never come back. And you know that. I know that, for myself. My guess is that it goes for Mythra, too. In that respect you are just as absolutely dear to me as Flora is. I cannot be with her now, and I have accepted that, but if something were truly to happen to you - tomorrow, even - I would regret most having wasted our time together by being petty and performative."

In other words, no homo, my prince. Not.

Minoth sighs, first out of exasperation and then out of a release of tension as his chin sinks further into Addam's shoulder. "But I didn't die," he repeats uselessly. "It's no big thing."

Somehow he thinks Addam still doesn't believe he's real (again? already?) and that if he steps back, either of them, he'll fade away, if not like a bygone mirage then like a Blade whose Driver has died, because in some sense a Flesh Eater is its own Driver.

"But you might."

Ah. So that's it. It all falls together now. Addam, scared of being Mythra's Driver and overcompensating in his leadership by being positively obnoxious, has gotten himself cornered into a steeple-tail-chase-tizzy because Minoth's life isn't tied to his and somehow that all twists back around into a big fat load of guilt. He's only twenty-four, and he's scared shitless because Minoth isn't a guardian, yet he is, he isn't a ward, yet he is, he isn't a partner, yet he is...

"Read a very interesting maxim about this once," Minoth says, conversational, tucking a hand into the wild thicket of Addam's hair and cupping the back of his head. "From some nutjob satirist back in Morytha. Judicium must have found it."

Addam doesn't answer, but he stills, somewhat. Calm. Calming, anyway.

"'The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.' Ain't that funny?"

"Hilarious," says Addam. He's not laughing. More morose. Minoth pulls tighter himself; now even he's afraid of the whole thing breaking, cracking at the seams and then across the breast wholesale.

"Come on, Prince. You wanna go home? You wanna go see Flora, for a while? If Malos is waiting, maybe he can wait a spell more." It's ridiculous, he knows (especially since Flora is literally only a few hundred meters away, the barrier locking her up in the garrison only mental in its construction, its fabrication), but he eyes Mythra, who's circled back to check in, or maybe just to watch, and she shrugs, nods. Maybe so.

Though Addam didn't sniffle before, he whimpers now. Christ, he's down bad.

"Hey, hey," Minoth starts, conceding to laying gentility into his tone along with everything else he's submitted and submitting to. "How come something happens to me for once and it's still you who's crying?"

The sudden struggle to school his histrionics is wildly apparent as Addam shifts his feet. "Because I don't want to lose you."

Now Minoth pulls back without waiting for permission and settles a hand on either side of Addam's face. "You think I wanna lose you? Where do you think everyone'd be if it had been you that went flying off terra firma ass-first? You know you're no good at swimming."

It's the first time since Minoth arrived back that Addam's actually taken a good look at his face. The more he does it, the more his own melts.

"You'd be down there rescuing me. Like I didn't do for you." So it's about him, and not about the colloquial general "you all".

"Because of the aforementioned..."

"Right. Of course." Addam didn't blame Minoth, and Minoth wouldn't blame Addam. (Only themselves, as ever, and all.) "You're not hurt at all?"

"Nah," says Minoth, thumbs stroking over Addam's eyebrows now. "Just a little achy, maybe, and swimming in the clouds heals that right up - for anyone, and that includes me. Swear on my mother, I'm fine."

"You haven't got a mother!" Addam retorts, nearly shouts in his indignation. "Minoth-!" And then he's stopped by...something else occupying his lips. When it removes itself at last, it's replaced by a forehead leant in to meet its mate.

"Maybe I wanna go sit down with Flora. You coming with?"

"I-- Yes. Of course. Always." Always.

"You fell?"

The preamble in the parlor and through to the bedroom had been easy, chatty, painfully comforting. Everyone else had elected to stay out in the campground and hob-nob (as much hob-nobbing as could be done when Mungo was the only distinguished citizen around), so Addam and Minoth had strode carefully into the house and found Flora eagerly rushing up to meet them for hugs and kisses and useless gossip and...and taking stock.

"Only off the side of the Titan," Minoth said, as if that was normal. As if that was the smallest scale of a way in which you could perform such an action. "I wouldn't worry yourself, those waters are the softest I've ever had the displeasure of meeting."

"Minoth." Addam's tone was warning. "You rather conveniently left out the description of that which caused you to fall, I think."

"And that is?" Not Minoth being purposefully difficult, but Flora poking in inquiry.

"Ardun," Minoth returned. The way in which he said it recalled Armu, more like, and their quest to retrieve Joey's wandering herd, but it certainly wasn't the playwright's most historically artful feint.

Flora pursed her lips. "Hm. And I don't suppose you just stumbled backwards trying to guide the poor little cow?"

"Oh, Flora, stop babying him." Whatever crumble had introduced itself to Addam's resolve just earlier had now backed itself politely out. Like as not, he was compensating for how self-conscious the moment of weakness had made him. "He was rammed off the cliff by Gibson's horns directly."

"Hm." Again, but this time sharper. More pointed. "That's like the difference between dying and being killed, I rather think. Come on."

Minoth furrowed his brow. "Come on, what?"

"Well if Addam came home to me and said he'd just had a nasty bout with a monster, the first thing we'd do is take off his armor and make sure he wasn't anything more than sore."

Oh. Oh-oh. Completely sensible to a human, and possibly to a normal Blade - possibly to absolutely any other Blade, period - but absolutely terrifying for Minoth.

Still, he prided himself on being able to sell his way out of absolutely any situation. Worth a shot, anyway. "Save your worrying, I can promise you that's it."

"Oh, can you?"

"Shut up, Addam."

"It's my house. I don't think I will."

"Alright, alright, but none of this 'we' - I'll do it myself, thank you very much."

The Origos exchanged a not-quite-knowing glance. "Fine by me."

It wasn't as if it was a difficult process, to remove his jacket (and gloves, and belts, and whatever else) and disengage the seams just below the collar of his bodysuit, but it was hard to do it in a way that didn't feel like stripping, sat at the foot of his prince and princess's bed with them watching his every move.

"Do you have to hawk me like that? This isn't supposed to be attractive."

"It's not as if you have a choice in that," Flora prodded gently. "I'll always be eager to see you, whatever your state of dress, but still, I take your point. Should we go into the other room?"

Oh, Flora. Sweet, sweet Flora. Just about all of Minoth's annoyance melted away, and he reassured her that "Don't worry yourself, I'm almost done." Contentment floated in the air, the front panel folded down, freeing his Core Crystal, and then...

"You're all bruised!" Yes, he was. Two gruesome splotches of grayish-brownish-bluish discoloration hit the scars right at the bottom of his pectoral muscles, and they looked like they were going to stay for a while. Wasn't as if he minded. But Flora herself? That, he minded.

Was it the open care in her tone? The disappoinment at having almost being given the runaround? Regardless, Minoth stifled a grimace. Opposite Flora, then, was her husband. Raising his eyebrows, Addam crossed his arms, cocked his hips, and just generally set about looking very vindicated. And that...that did not make Minoth's already-tanking mood any better.

"Comes with the work, I think," he fenced, and knew it was a losing battle. "And you with the 'stop babying him' as if that was going to help any. See how I'm worse off now than I was then?"

"You can squabble with him later," said Flora, just shy of primly. "I don't know much about all this Flesh Eater business, but I know enough to decide that I'll not have you up and about making those gouges any worse."

"What, so you're going to put me on bed rest? House arrest, even?"

Flora didn't answer; Addam shot him a look containing the absolute strangest mixture of fondness and exasperation. Minoth shut up.

"Mhm. Now stay right there, I'm going to go get a washcloth." And out she went.

Addam, satisfied, sat down on the bed next to Minoth and gently laid a hand on his thigh. "I'm glad you brought us back down here, I think it'll do us good to have a break."

"Uh-huh, real good," Minoth muttered vaguely. He hadn't jumped at the touch, but he did definitely feel like he was about to.

"Everything alright, Minoth?"

"I'm...not the best with..." What? Concern? Affection? Tender loving care? Blegh. "Other people dressing my wounds." And wasn't that obvious?

Shifting his weight once more, Addam turned to study his Blade. "Really? I never would have known - you never seem to have a problem with Haze healing you."

Crap. Go airy. Hah - get it? "Well, that's different. Haze is a healer. Different role, and all."

"Ah," said Addam, just as vaguely. Not just as absentmindedly. "And it wouldn't happen to have anything to do with your never having experienced such treatment in Indol?"

Did Addam know? Didn't he? Was that the reason he'd been so ginger, so uncharacteristically soft and softspoken with his actions? It had only been the one, but all the same...

"It's not my fault," Minoth snapped, harsher than either expected or necessitated. "Do you have to make out like I'm a coward for it?"

"No." Addam drummed his fingers purposefully in his lap. Odd. "I just want you to acknowledge it. We'll never be able to do anything about it otherwise."

Now Minoth turned. "Do anything about it? So it's a problem? Always you with the solving problems, and the helping people - goddamn it, don't you ever leave anything alone?"

If he'd bothered to listen for a response, Minoth would have heard Addam quietly intone, "Not when it comes to you two," but he hadn't, because Flora could plainly be heard out in the hall, and he was busy scrambling for his next MO.

Upon reentering, her assessment of their postures relative to one another was brief, but it was enough. "If you want to deal with the patches on your chest yourself, that's fine, but you're going to have to let one of us take a look at your back."

Everything comes to a head eventually. You can only hold out with your bullishness (ha) for so long. Minoth sighed, closed his eyes, shook his head. "No, go ahead. Do your worst."

In order to allow them to do so, he unsnapped the top panel of leather from the bottom, exposing everything from approximately the middle of his torso up. Really, that was a bigger admission of his nod towards vulnerability than anything he'd said - and what's that about actions speaking so well, and the leading edge of history and all? So Minoth really is, was, a master of bullshittery.

"You're sure?" asked Addam, scuffing at the heels of his shoes.

"Hey, you said it, Prince."

"Huh. So I did."

"Said what, exactly?" Flora had come closer to sit on the bed next to them, but finding that there wasn't quite enough room elected to sit on Addam's lap instead. And that would have been fine, had she not currently been a full quarter of her usual weight heavier. No, I didn't forget, but perhaps Addam had: a dreadfully unsubtle "oof" could be heard.

"I thought you told me you were going to work out more."

"Well, I was, but then there wasn't time, and then we met up with Aegaeon and he does all the heavy lifting for us, and Minoth helps him too, and--"

She put a gentle finger to his lips; he stopped talking in order to kiss it. "I'm kidding, dear."

Sigh. "Yes dear." Conveniently enough, Minoth just crossed his arms and watched.

Or, at least, he tried to. "And now back to you, my good sir." So she was in a silly mood now, and who knew what that meant. "Is there any reason why I should have reservations about touching you? If you're being willful that's one thing, but if I'm overstepping your boundaries that's quite another."

Again, sweet, sweet Flora. Minoth reached over to take one of her hands - the one that hadn't already been monopolized by Addam - and held it loosely in his own as he considered his words.

"Amalthus was...very clinical, as a Driver. As a person in general, really. He never made a habit of showing me that casual touch was normal, and then the few times he did come into my personal space, it was to take away my notebooks, or criticize my hair, or..."

He gestured morosely at his Core Crystal. "You know. That."

Flora nodded, unusually solemn. "Every time I hear about this man my opinion of him worsens. I pray I never have to meet him." Behind her, Addam nestled his nose in the curve of her neck to make silent agreement.

They were perfect, weren't they? Amalthus didn't even have any reason to mess with them - not that he'd ever get the chance. Minoth grit his teeth. "You'd, ah...have to go through me first. I'd never let him near you."

"You think he'd hurt me?" No...

"I think he wouldn't. And in the strangest way, that would make me feel all the worse." What a fucking complicated emotion, and for no reason. It didn't even make sense to him as he said it. Did it even matter? Probably not.

"Oh, Minoth..." The touch was soft as could be, cool fingers upon rounded crystal, and Minoth jerked back, nearabout hissed, like a cat with its tail caught. It was pathetic, to not even be able to handle a single touch without jolting away in fear, yet somehow the pained looks on Flora and Addam's faces hurt worse.

"I'm sorry." Both Flora and Minoth said it at the same time. She looked at him, head slightly angled to one side and one hand pressed over Addam's atop her stomach, and continued, since he hadn't, "Why ever for? It's not your fault."

It's not my fault. That was indeed what he had claimed, but it didn't feel too true right about now. What was it? Just people. Just normal, human contact. And even Blades knew about normal human contact.

"Sure as hell feels like it," Minoth concluded at last.

"It seems like it feels like a lot of things," Addam put in. "Ideally, it should just feel like we love you - might we try to arrange that?"

"I...guess?" Playwright though he was, it seemed patently obvious to Minoth that this was one thing that couldn't be staged. But, indeed, they might as well try. Flora stood, allowing Addam room to remove his shoes and scoot back on the bed behind Minoth, and once he had gone she made to take his place, but Minoth stopped her with a hand of his own on her arm.

"Can I hold you?"

Flora looked at Addam, and Addam looked at Flora; both their hearts broke. "If you're sure you're comfortable with that." And was he? Not really. But it beat letting life happen to him. They knew that, of course, and the whole thing was either entirely so poignant or wholly drip-dry cut out, so...on with it.

True to Addam's word, Minoth didn't find a pregnant Flora half so unwieldy as his prince had, and she settled into his lap easily enough. "I'm not...sitting on anything, am I?"

At that, Minoth had to laugh - at last, at last, at last! "No, Blades don't have those - and even if they did, I wouldn't have anything much to sit on."

"I rather wonder why you didn't have such a worry when sitting on my lap, Flora," Addam nudged as he moved forward to wrap his arms around Minoth's waist. She reached down to squeeze his hand in response: "You know why. That's just our little secret."

So saying, she began to dab the washcloth over the bruises, which lightened considerably as a result once the dead cells had flaked away. At first, the flinches came quite frequently, and Flora felt Minoth's grip tighten where he'd interlaced his fingers around her shoulder, but eventually, with Addam steadying him from behind, he became used to the motion, and the sensation of Flora's hands moving back and forth, out and in.

"Are you alright?"

"Mhmm." His eyes were closed, and he winced every so often, but Addam couldn't see that, so he just ran his thumbs along the ether lines and continued.

"Can I take your ponytail down?"

Now a frown came to match the discomfort displayed on the upper part of Minoth's face. "Why?"

"I'd like to run my fingers through your hair. Is that alright?"

Minoth opened his eyes, gazed blearily down at Flora petting his Core Crystal (still with the washcloth, to maximize familiarity). "Aren't we done here?"

"We could be," said Addam mildly. "But the others know we might spend the night up here, and I imagine you're not going to sleep on your own." Minoth considered that. "There aren't any bruises on your back, by the way - and that wasn't just a trick, either. I'm very glad you let us help you."

Aha. Minoth considered that too. "So I'm helped. But I don't have to put you out any longer, do I?"

"Put us out?" Quietly dropping the washcloth to the floor, Flora moved one arm to reach behind Minoth's back, careful not to let her skin touch his, and shifted closer. "For one thing, this is the most interesting thing that's happened to me since Addam's been gone. I hardly think I should mind tending to a couple of bruises and getting to spend some time with the two of you."

"But you're still walking on eggshells," Minoth pointed out. "It's more than anyone should have to deal with, trying to be around a person who can't stand to be touched."

Flora frowned. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but to me it seems more like you just never had anything positive to associate with being touched. Like if I...?" She looked up into his face and carefully laid a finger over his chin, then moved it away and kissed the same spot. And Minoth...didn't flinch. His face was the only part of him that was perpetually uncovered, so that made enough sense, but it was still something.

"I wouldn't mind getting to do that at all," she teased, "if it would help you."

From his same vantage point over Minoth's shoulder, Addam nodded appraisingly. "I don't want to force you to do anything - anything at all - but now seems as good a time as any to give you some better experiences to attach to it."

If Minoth could have hung his head without colliding with Flora's, he-- Well, why not? He bowed his nose to the crown of her head, breathed in all that was her, and murmured softly, "Anything that has to do with the two of you is better."

Flora shook her head (as freely as she could with Minoth ever-so-slightly attached). "It's always touch and go with you, but you're always so wonderful when you come around. I can't imagine where you would be if Addam hadn't found you."

"I don't want to think about it," Minoth replied - or rather, he was about to, and then his breath was stolen away by the gentle pecks of Flora's fingertips and lips upon his Core Crystal, and Addam pulling him back to lie down nearer to the head of the bed.

"I think we can work that out."

Minoth is the one who should wake panting his panic, unsettled with the atypical atmosphere. Minoth is the one who should be wild and afraid, for he has never seen an aspect of life such as this before. Minoth is the one who should be clinging to tenuous promises.

But it is Flora, in fact, who jostles up from between the two men. Their hands, limply joined over her stomach, slide away, impotent. They're hardly bothered by external change. Self-absorbed, one might call it. Or perhaps only tired, or perhaps at a certain age of adulthood it all becomes the same.

She is, usually, governed by her words. She never has overly emotional reactions, never is incomprehensible towards either the solution or the dissolution of a problem. (And mark that as quite a feminine thing, if you please!) Flora doesn't happen to the world; the world happens to Flora, and she reacts as she will.

So of course you know I'm about to tell you that when the men do wake, and groggily flash eyes at each other before realizing the sudden disturbance is no farther nor further away than the reach of a reassuring arm, they are quite confounded to receive no coherent explanation of the incident.

"Are you alright, Flora?" Rising to match her posture, Addam grasps gently at Flora's shoulder, which fits so easily and naturally into and underneath his palm. But she doesn't answer him, only scrubs frantically at her eyes with the heels of her hands and near sides of her knuckles. Out, damned spot, it very nearly seems like. What could have her so disturbed?

Minoth, for his part, hesitantly considers what he would do if he were her, what he would want if he were in that position, then hurriedly scraps the both and thinks of what cues the situation is giving to Flora herself. His ultimate decision and course of action, then, is to rest a hand gently on the region of her shoulder where the dress covers her skin.

By and by, the sounds of the moor filter in through the crack in the window and mingle with the continued noisy trickling of breathy tears. Addam and Minoth confer something, eyeball to eyeball, but continue to wait. In domestic things, they can certainly afford to be all patience. At least, so they think - and it's only future sagacity that might prove it wrong, not any impending cataclysm here and now.

When the bulk of it has seemingly subsided, Addam queries again. "Darling? Are you alright?"

She takes a deep breath, slow but accidentally shallow, and has to try a few more times with Addam's hand caressing her back until everything flows smoothly again.

"I was- it was just-- I had a nightmare."

Addam frowns, cocks his head, holds Flora's right hand in his lap but otherwise gives her her space. "Forgive me for responding to that with my own contrasting impression, but I've never seen you react in such a way to a nightmare before. You're usually very quiet, just waking up and getting your bearings before cuddling closer to me and falling back to sleep."

Flora nods, shaky, and wipes tear tracks from her left cheek (Minoth gets bold and kisses it for good measure when she's done, quite possibly). "That's right. It's not like me."

"So? What do you think was different this time?"

"It was..." she toys idly with the flouncy rick-rack trim on her dress "...you. Both of you."

"Should I be flattered?" Minoth jokes. His hand still hasn't moved from that invulnerable place above her deltoid. Doubly despite herself, Flora laughs at the cloddish behavior. "If you like."

They let the silence set further, and with a small questioning motion Addam offers that they should all lie down again. Soon enough, she acquiesces, pulling Minoth's hand with her as she turns in to Addam's chest.

"Before, it was never anything more than...human things. Irrational anger, or people finding out secrets I wasn't ready to tell, or spiders in the ceiling growing larger and larger without moving an inch. Normal things. Nothing to be afraid of."

"Nothing wrong with being afraid of bugs," Minoth whispers, tone an awkward mezzo-piano. "You let me know if you ever do have trouble with those, though."

"As if that's the only reason I like having you around."

"Hey, look, I like to be useful. Sue me."

Addam, gently stroking the back of Flora's hair where it flows beneath Minoth's chin, just smiles. More or less, he can surmise what the rest of the not-dream would have been, and that's fine enough, unless she wants to say more.

To wit: "But this was...I'd never seen either of you injured before. Oh, Addam with a bruise on his head or Minoth when you got that same scar, I'd never really been worried. And you're not a normal Blade, and Mythra isn't either. But to see you hurt, even from just such a mundane thing..."

Are the golden monsters mundane? Perhaps. It's in their named nature that they're not, but in comparison to the dread and the despair and the absolute dearth of hope that the Aegis, Malos, and his Driver, Amalthus, bring, one supposes they might very well be.

"I won't describe it again, it was quite ugly and it put me all out of sorts. I haven't seen war, only imagined it. But I hate the bloody thing nonetheless."

The curse rings in the air, surprisingly dry. Nothing about the baby, nothing about her own safety, nothing about self-possession and being perfectly content and fulfilled not to be taken care of by a man, or even another woman, day in and day out. Is it so inignoble to think of such other things?

"I can't just tell you to promise you'll come back home safe, that's positively idiotic. It's unrealistic, and it helps nobody, because such maudlin sentimentality is weaker than I ever like to be. It's one thing to be warm, and loving, and vulnerable. It's another to be foolish."

Addam and Minoth share a glance, again, but this time there's much more latent information within.

"We'll do our best for you, Flora," Addam promises, swears, in spite of her self-admonishment. "I can't promise you that we'll come out of our bouts with Malos unscathed, either, but the closer we are to each other, the less of that human anger we'll have, anyway."

He reaches down to join hands with the other two, and Minoth adds, to close the scene, "Sure, what our prince said. But if he gets his ass handed to him, he's got me to answer to first. Just for you, love."

"Silly...oh, thank you both."

You know that kind of bitter, hard-swallow comforting that you give with lips bitten and tears blinked fervently back? The kind of crying it's okay - and only okay - to do because they can't see you, they can't hear you, they're all too wrapped up in their own helplessness?

Back then, everyone had laughed when Addam had cried. It was laughter borne of love, of patience, of lightness in the heart. And of course nobody had those things anymore.

There was nobody left to have those things anymore. There never were, never are.

Back then. As if it had been one or two distant centuries ago, instead of just last week. Not even that.

Addam's face is bright, open, as he comes less trudging, more trotting down the beach outside of the nascent village.

"You okay there, Addam?" Of course he doesn't say anything so simpering as stuff about a prince.

"Perfectly fine, Minoth," Addam returns. So Addam returns. So Addam has returned. "It's...it's done with, now."

It. Amalthus had called Blades it, sometimes. He hadn't cared, or perhaps then again he very much had.

It doesn't matter that much now, all things considered. Of course it doesn't. It's done with, now.

"You're sure?" Minoth stands with his arms crossed, held low over his abdomen. He doesn't hide his Core.

"I'm sure." The robotic response very surely inspires no confidence in either of them. Now they're standing, boots to shoes, right in front of each other, and Minoth can see the imperceptible twitch in Addam's left eye.

"We'll go in, then."

"We'll go in."

Twitch number three. Bite number one. "You're not okay, Addam."

And Addam doesn't follow on with the verbatim repetition like he'd been jovially playing along just before. "Of course I am!" His hand goes up and claps down on the crest of the uppermost gauntlet, which he knows is not Minoth's least favorite place to be touched, but not his most favorite either - in casual parlance, that's nowhere.

If Minoth were more potent a Blade, just taken stock from the Core even before the experiment, his armor might have had a metallic, gravitronic bite to it that would have stung Addam's hand even through his gloves. But he isn't, and it doesn't, and they don't.

A rumble comes. Storm soon. The clouds undulate, briefly.

Addam and Flora both had always liked thunderstorms, him more for sitting inside and listening and her more for running out and spreading her arms wide and letting it, the crash, soak her to the bone. So Addam's not particularly predisposed to enjoy the portent crawling its way over and in, but whatever horrific images started swimming around behind his eyes at the not-so-quiet cue certainly don't help.

Twitch number seven. Bite number two. Blinks numbers one, two, three.

Minoth knows how to handle Addam. Knows his ups, his downs, his ins, his outs, all of his humanity.

Most certainly, he knows Addam better than Addam has ever known or will ever know him, save for the infrequent moments of princely prescience that cut through all idiosyncrasy, put-on and put-off.

Minoth knows there's not much left in the tank. It's all about to spill.

Twitch number twelve. Bites numbers three and four. Blinks uncountable, which is lucky because Addam's stopped looking. Or...the other way around.

They've still not spoken of what "it" is. Probably, they never will. Maybe.

Addam's knees go first, then his arms. Without even having to think, Minoth has dropped a foot and a half to catch him and pull him up into his arms.

The crying is loud and ugly in addition to being pitiable and genuine. It's not anything like the sobs he'd released over Hugo's everstill form, not ever a thin, calculated frame.

Does Minoth want to hear it? No, not particularly, but he doesn't particularly want to silence it either. The instinctive shushing sounds he makes, whispers over Addam's head more than into his ears, are merely that.

In order to belong to Team Addam, or Team Lora for that matter, absolutely, you have to be a little broken. The Ardainians hadn't been, not even dysfunctional - maybe Milton and Mikhail should have swapped places, rather. That was why Mythra and Minoth had been such unexpected, unlikely fast friends, despite their surface-level tensions. She'd never mind(ed) sharing quite the way Haze did, because she hadn't needed to.

Ah, but... Doesn't matter now, does it? So now Addam breaks. He is only human, lacking of a lingering resonance hanging sassiness or even supplication over his head, and his sorrow spills out ungracefully at the seams.

Minoth had always thought that in a situation like this he'd say more, be stronger, be smarter than all the insecure mess. But that's the thing: he's not above it. He never was, he never will be, and he doesn't even want to be. Not now, and maybe not ever.

No longer is he so sure of where he'd been planning to go next. But right now, when he's needed, perhaps by rote and perhaps by specification, he stands and stays and bends and breaks and hurts and comforts his prince for a long, long time.

"Will you quit it, already? I get it!"

If Jin twitches, it's imperceptibly, as usual. His nodachi is already down in its and his customary ready position; he's unflapped. Of course.

Mythra is not so. Neither is Addam. The diadem is gleaming as it hasn't been for the past hour, because she's, oh, so sick and tired of not being able to call Siren, of not being able to be her own freaking SELF, because her stupid Driver thought- no, thinks, ALWAYS, that he knows stupid best, and forced her to spar with Jin by herself, without using any of her actual Aegis powers.

So she's not skilled enough to catch him off guard or knock his sword aside with her own. So she's not fast enough for the Paragon of Torna. So she's not strong enough to push him down.

So she's not good enough. And not only that, but she's goddamn tired, because fighting takes energy, and Father damn it all if she wasn't giving everything she had, every second.

And now? Now she's had it. Now she's well and thoroughly pissed, and what she wants to do is wipe Jin off the face of Alrest, because it's not like he wants to help them defeat Malos, he just wants all the people to go away so he can go back to being selectively shut-mouthed at Lora.

He looks bored. The more Mythra looks at him, the more tired she feels, which is doubly frustrating because she knows there's not a single one of his muscles that isn't in perfect tune to block her again. Again!

So she's had it. She throws her sword down on the ground because it's starting to feel heavy, which it shouldn't, and because no one would ever dare touch it anyway, which they shouldn't - unless Milton would...?

Ugh. She bends down, and something stretches very definitely the wrong way. Efficiency instinct says to stay crouched and just waddle off to wherever she's going, but since she doesn't know where she actually wants to go, that would kill the "storming off" aspect, which is the only one that matters.

Eyes flick back and forth: Mythra's, and everyone else's. Everyone but Jin, Lora, Haze, and Addam had already been elsewhere before Mythra's outburst, and it was just her luck that of course they'd come creeping back over now.

That's the trouble with Torna. It doesn't even have rolling hills like Gormott. Everything and everyone's wide open to the skies.

The blue, blue skies, which would be Mythra's friends and memories of Elysium if dumbass Addam hadn't had anything to say about it.

Hand to hilt, the Aegis sword melts away into a dull green that matches the approximate modal temperature of Mythra's Core. The fans are low, but the processor is sluggish anyway. Just great.

She listens for a "Mythra..." in either sternness or fear, but doesn't get one, not from Addam or Lora. (Of course she doesn't expect the Blades to speak. The other Blades. The ones who are the same as her. You know. Except that they're not.)

Off she slinks to the vague direction of the garrison, through whichever pairs of stragglers she remains willfully ignorant, hoping and indeed knowing that Addam's too cowed to follow her and that without him there none of his anti-militant little sycophants will dare approach her.

Tch. Some respect. Real swell.

Up on the parapet (how she'd managed to drag her sore legs, aching inside her tights, up even the first flight of stone steps is well beyond her, as nothing and then again everything usually is), Noowl intercepts Mythra's rolling glare with expediency and yoinks himself away.

She could let herself fall into the trap of thinking that it's her fault, that they're just handling her like a hot potato because she's never been even the slightest hint of cool, that her every outburst is pinnable and killable, that patience is a virtue and good habits aren't just learned but earned...

But something more traditionally human than a diagnostic tool begs pathetically at self-defense. It's not her fault, because if it was her fault then she'd have nothing at all.

Mythra purposefully looks well over the heads of silver and reddish-brown so easily available for her to look down upon and at now. There's the base of the Lett Bridge walkway, where Addam suggested that she run herself like bait before a throng of Gogols just "for science".

Or no, that was with the Parisax at the entrance to Dannagh. The Gogols had been Brighid's coy little look at "someone" who could act as a decoy, because they were naturally demonstrably useless as all else. Sick.

As in, she's going to be sick. And with her luck, Aegaeon, or worse, Brighid, or somehow even worse, Hugo, would be walking right underneath the archway at this very moment, and the concrete results of their training session will burn acridity right through every comb-swipe on his pretty little head.

"I'm sorry."

Uh?

Flora must have been there the entire time, with Mythra completely oblivious, because there's no way she dragged herself up those same steps in the amount of time Mythra's been up here. Or maybe there is...?

"I thought you were doing pretty well. For the form that your sword requires, at least in my eyes, you're a lot more controlled than I've seen you in the past."

Uh-uh. The whole damn time. And is she going to just...keep on talking?

"I wish there were something I could do to help you - I know, right now I'm just as bad as them."

I, I, I. All about you. You're sorry, and you thought, and you wish, and you know, and then you are, again. Shut up, lady, like...for real?

But Mythra doesn't say any of that, just puffs another percussive gust of air out from between vibrating lips couched in upturned palms. Flora, of course, can't lean quite as close to the wall, but unfortunately for Mythra, she doesn't turn away and, I don't know, at least pretend to mind her own business?

"Is there anything?"

Either it's persistence or it's stupidity, and Mythra doesn't like either of those options. Flora's nose, so much rounder and so much less poke-into-your-business than Lora's, still doesn't know what's good for it. Mythra'd've thought that after the three prior, and very brief, encounters they'd had that she would. Isn't she supposed to be a teacher? Shouldn't she be good at picking things up when they're presented to her?

"You could stop dropping your guilt at my feet and expecting me to shine your shoes with it."

Mythra's expecting one of three things to come from this comment: one, Flora could roll her eyes and glide away, hands on belly and boots a-scuffing; two, she could frown and make a pitiable little hurt-lady-of-the-house noise; or three, she could laugh so so SO freaking insufferably, it's unreal how horrible she is all while ending up as Addam's pretty little doll wife through absolutely no merit of her own.

Not that Addam has it in him to be discerning towards literally anyone besides Mythra. And not that Flora's actual reaction does anything to change Mythra's opinion of her.

She nods, and bends ridiculously far forward to escort her midsection out of the way so she can lay her arms, elbows first, crossed on the cobbles and pout in kind. The "I know. Not a thing." goes unspoken.

You know.

Okay. So maybe it does a little.

Maybe it makes her feel bad for assuming the worst.

But it certainly doesn't make her hope for the best.

(That comes when Flora asks, gentle as can be, "If it's not too weird, would you like to use our shower? There's hot water and thick walls.")

The Aegis doesn't bleed. Blades don't bleed, and the Aegis definitely doesn't bleed.

But Mythra feels something very, very important leaving her skull anyway. Maybe it's ether. Maybe it's data. Maybe it's pus, if white blood cells are to be counted any differently, and maybe it does stand to reason that she would have those? Right? Little infection-fighting soldiers?

No matter. Never matter. No energy no matter. She's got no energy.

No matter.

No matter.

No matter.

No matter.

No matter.

No matter.

No matter.

No matter.

No matter.

Feels random. Isn't. Hasn't got enough dimensions available to be.

Dizzy. Lymphatic reaction. Shaken up like a soda,

What's a soda?

and all the bubbles are popping popping popping

BANG

goes the mallet on the drum.

The drum. The head of the drum. It's her head.

Skull. Cranium. Brain. Cavity. Temple. Peak.

That bare place before the bang that sweeps across her forehead starts is leaking, leaking, leaking. If Mythra weren't too dizzy to make sense of anything at all, she'd probably be so tritely tapping fingers, covered in the dark touch of the insides of her gloves, to the place where it hurts.

The place where the blood isn't supposed to be. But it is, anyway.

"Haze!"

Not her voice. It's angry enough, impatient enough, urgent enough, but it's not hers. And where Minoth's voice usually has a little bounce, a little parabolic lilt right in the middle of whatever, whichever, whosever name he might be calling, it's missing. It drives straight up, and then again straight down. Straight out. Straight in.

Ouch. Pierce to bone.

"Don't need Haze..." This tone is neither angry nor impatient nor urgent and thus resembles the Light Aegis Mythra none at all, but she feels the words fall numbly out from between her lips. Don't need Haze. Right. You don't. I don't. We don't.

And of course Haze isn't coming anyway. Otherwise Minoth wouldn't be yelling. Minoth never yells if it isn't necessary. Addam does, or he yells back at someone telling him information he already knows, but Minoth doesn't.

"'S fine." She doesn't talk to him, even at him, much, but when she does it's usually because of something important. This isn't. He's worried for nothing. So if he would just...shut up...

"Not fine, Mythra." His warning tone looms, such that she can see him even though she can't see him (eyes lidded, vitreous miasma swimming simultaneously lazily and on on on for dear life). "Your hair's turning green."

"Huh?" Sick. Bet it'll look awesome with my Core Crystal.

Say, what's a Core Crystal?

"You're bleeding, Mythra."

Who's Mythra, anyway?

The lights go out. Whether because of an internal or an external force, she doesn't know. Something like a comb starts moving through her hair.

"Tell me what happened."

"Y-you? Whydon'tyoutell......me..."

Stupid guy. Asking her to tell him. She doesn't know anything. She's not the Aegis. She's just a...

A...

Uh...?

"Fine. I'll tell you. There was a Scorpox. It was alone, at first. It caught sight of us as I was preparing to snipe a shot at it, and it moved to attack. You said you could 'handle this one, easy', and then instead of putting a shield up in front of me, you jumped in front yourself, and took a claw to the forehead. It'd give anyone a nasty gash. Even you."

Heh. Sounds like her. Her job is to eliminate threats, right? Faster doing that than wasting time with shields and shit. Those are Blades' jobs, anyway. And she's not a Blade. She's just a...

Uh???

"Who're you?"

"They call me Minoth, usually."

Jokes. Jokes. Jokes.

Ha. Ha ha.

So funny.

I know it's funny. But I'm a Blade. I'm the Aegis. So I'm not laughing.

Huh?

With fluttering rolls, her eyes draw open, and she takes in the vague blob of brown in front of her. It hurts to try to discern more details, but she does anyway. Minoth (usually) isn't making eye contact, instead focused on that peculiar stinging place north of her sight line. His palm keeps alternating between pressing down and moving away to stroke the hair matted up around it. It's annoying, honestly. Can't he just pick one?

"What'reya gonnado about that?"

"Don't know, Mythra."

"Who's Mythra?"

"My friend."

"Don'tcha have any more friends?"

"Not right now. They've been drawing out the rest of the Scorpox horde away to the west for a while."

"Wha...t'soverthere?"

"A steep incline made of sand."

"So we're screwed."

"So we're screwed, Mythra."

"Am I still green?"

The hand pets awkwardly at the crown of her head again. Crown. Princess. Lady. Come on, lady, buck up.

"Not so much now. That's good." He huffs a tentatively relieved breath. "Real good."

The brown blob comes closer, and Mythra realizes she's being hugged.

"Well come on, Minoth, when have I ever let you down?"

Ow. Too tight. But better than the bleeding, anyway.

Hey, what're you talking about? Aegises don't bleed.

So he's her Driver, huh? Looks so noble I might barf.

Impressive. Give it a bit more and you might even save Torna, my prince.

Oh, my little prince. If only you could peek into Mythra's pretty little head.

All these insults, Addam can take, if only because he knows Malos is genuinely only speaking truth. Is it ridicule, by the tone of it? Absolutely, it is. But it's naught that he doesn't actually agree with, in the end.

"You know..."

All eyes turn towards the Dark Aegis now with an air of tetchy patience. What is it? What ripe revelation could you have this time? Will it set us off course yet again? Why do you waste our time - all of ours, when you're so ready to advance the end?

"I heard the Lord of Aletta was married."

Momentarily, Addam is thrown, doesn't grasp the relevance. Yes, he had been. But that doesn't figure in hardly at all, now that both of them are dead, does it?

"Heard you had a pretty little wife."

Gah. Right. The Lord of Aletta is him, and such a choice tidbit would doubtless have been passed along by Amalthus, if Malos hadn't observed it himself already. Hugo's brows start to set, at this comment.

"Tch. What could she possibly see in you? Not like you're worth using for a rung up in status. After all..."

The gray eyes, amid flashes of purple, flick to Mythra. She grimaces.

"You don't even have the stones to be the Driver of the Aegis. What good is a prince who can't do that?"

Everyone's looking at Addam now, anticipating a pat, hardy response just like the one he'd delivered outside of the very palace where he no longer, had never, belonged. Jin seems to be agreeing, while Lora is firmly on the prince's side, and Brighid is conflicted. The reactions are...mixed, overall. Nobody knows Flora well enough to make a judgement - certainly, not even Mythra.

Behind the rest, lingering conspicuously far back, is Minoth. He's focused on Malos instead. He knows Addam doesn't have much to say.

"Is she stupid? I mean, all humans are, but really, this is too much."

Malos laughs, and the worst part is that the simulation of received humor is all too gripping. Why does he do this? How?

"How much'd'you have to pay her? I'd have hoped she'd at least be smart enough to ask a decent sum."

The space in between Addam's mandibles and temples visibly expands, to make room for his anger.

"Pay her for what?"

But Malos doesn't get to answer, even if he'd wanted to (he most certainly had), because Minoth has darted around behind Aegaeon, and Haze is clearly preparing backup; the target, knowing his coordinates, can't waste time.

Not that it takes much time to dispatch with the comparatively weak Flesh Eater, since a kick to his midsection does about the same as it does to Lora's. Haze could have staved off a readying ether blast, but hadn't started in early enough with her restriction, given that they hadn't wanted to blow the element of surprise completely.

That's enough of tactics, anyway. With that scene seen, Addam is almost doubly incensed - only almost, because of course Malos had hit him in his sorest spot. It's not enough that he's a poor example of Torna's beloved royal Drivers, likely so much more than simply unfit for the likes of the Paragon. No, he's the typical type of ignoble scum who has to be bought a wife, afforded no paltry bride price, for appearances' sake, and neither of them are worth a soul's penny more, to boot.

He doesn't...doesn't believe it, no, but...

But his broadsword falters, as it hefts up to push Malos down. No, indeed: he isn't enough.

Though Malos has been slightly incapacitated by the successive assaults, neither Jin nor Lora nor Brighid estimate their advantage great enough to try a third. The Aegis backs up, neck working like a preybird feigning intimidation.

"Maybe Aletta should be the first to go. Plenty of soldiers there - you've made me quite the handsome target, my prince."

Off to one side, Minoth smarts. That is his fealty to swear, and none - none - other. Malos knows exactly what he's doing in making a mockery of it. But oh, Architect damn it, he is so so SO fucking far from being right.

"Especially...poor, sweet, stupid...Fl-"

Addam's sword comes alive with twice the fury. "Keep her name OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!"

Malos, uninterested in dueling that righteous anger in particular, especially now that he's gotten his sights set, erupts a series of fiery purple masses in a ring around him.

"Heh." The laugh is begrudged, thankfully. "Whatever you say, Prince." Not like he wasn't expecting it.

And, in all of this, there is Mythra. She hasn't met Flora more times than she can count on the faces of her Core Crystal, she harbors non-impotent contempt for Addam generally, and Malos is...a jerk more than he is an idiot, usually. If Minoth has some particular stake in this, that's not her problem either.

But there's nothing as fetching anywhere else on Torna. Sure, there are the kids, and they're about as likely to survive, with evacuation transports and emergency shelters taken into account, but it's not like she's going to try to tell Malos to attack them instead. Hell, even she would pick them to save, if she had to choose.

"Hey, Malos!"

Now all eyes are on her. Minoth's got that warm, hopeful look in his eyes. Addam's a blank slate. They were made for each other. Ugh.

Out comes that rip-fire white-gold blade. "You want Flora, you're gonna have to get through me first."

Not just go, but get. I am standing in your way. I am standing on their side.

Finally, Malos is taken off-kilter, and his eyes squint in a ridiculously unflattering and uneven way. No...he didn't expect that.

What are you hiding, partner?

Though Addam cared dearly for every last member of the Urayan-turned-Tornan militia, he rather trusted them to take their own roll. It wasn't his direct responsibility if someone got left behind in any case - any usual case, let's say, and that responsibility did in fact fall to Augustus. But with the fall of Torna?

Well, he was simply too preoccupied, and it didn't matter whose moral principle got elected to the thing. Augustus knew he'd not be available to worry about them, if and when the time came, so he marshalled everyone onto transports at his own behest.

Looking down at the buckling plates of the formerly expansive moor, however, it became obvious to the discerning, hyperfocused eye that someone had gotten left behind. There was a peculiarly bright pink splotch, just the slightest speck bobbing forth, in the Cloud Sea, and Minoth knew that wasn't just souvenir Saffronia.

There wasn't time to dither. Someone must have told someone else that oh, sure, I saw Lady Origo, she was right behind me, and roundabout in circles that went, bypassing Mungo and Vez in all their glorious forgetfulness, and eventually they just goddamn left without her, which would put someone more in the mind of dealing with such people into suits with the idea of a few choice words.

But, Minoth only exerted his anger on targets he knew well enough to deserve it. He wasn't angry now. He was scared.

Mythra was rattled like the very toy Malos had treated her as. Addam was similarly shaken, and Lora's whole team stood hollowly looking on. Hushed murmurs from the citizens of Auresco who'd come aboard this ship floated cavalierly close to the late emperor's trim, postured corpse. Architect, it was enough to make anyone sick.

They weren't looking at him. They'd never notice if he left. So he slipped through a gap in the railing normally reserved for a gangplank, and prayed the drop down wouldn't be too much for his Flesh Eater composition.

Okay, so it hurt. He was well sore before he'd even started swimming. But, despite it all, there'd be ample time to rest later, at least for a day or two. Malos hadn't attacked multiple Titans in succession - hadn't gotten the chance to start, because his Gargoyles had exploded the Core instead of surmounting control of it.

This would be Minoth's last, first, and only critical task in that aptly short but sweet time for dancing Malos had spoken of. This was what he got, for being the only sane man. For breaking away from Amalthus to begin with.

Sounded like a hell of a dramatization, huh? He hadn't drowned yet. But, that was the thing. If he drowned, what would happen to him? He wouldn't return to his Core, most likely, but maybe, with the Cloud Sea all around him, maybe he wouldn't die, whatever dying meant for him, either.

Maybe he didn't think he was going to make it. Maybe he didn't know why he'd even thought to bother to try. Swimming all the way around underneath the neck of the goddamn Tornan Titan, from one wing to the other, in an electrofire storm? What was he thinking?

So he stopped thinking. Didn't take much brainpower, or corepower, or horsepower, or whichever, to tread water with an added directional component in the mix. Arms like his were made to swivel in their sockets, regardless of the boned animation of his jacket making restrictions and constrictions on top of everything. Legs paddle, strokes cycle one after the other, and you get there.

Maybe too late, but you get there.

Being made of something other than water, the Cloud Sea didn't roil all that much at the scale that Minoth needed. Its life-giving properties, too, appeared none daunted by the calamity unfolding all around. He made sure not to glance up even once, for fear of what he might see in the craggy protrusions of the dying Titan, but he almost didn't even need to breathe; oxygen and other vitals seemed to be refueled preternaturally.

So. A good thing it was him, and not any of the Drivers or pure Blades who had gone. The task seemed ready-made. No obstacles. Just exertion. And, hopefully, a live body to take hold of when he got there.

Back on the ship, of course, things were starting to happen. Pyra was fronting, for the first time; Brighid and Aegaeon had been properly returned to the Special Inquisitor, not for the first or the last time but perhaps for the first time together; Mikhail was keeping tight hold of Milton's limp body, indeed for the last time.

And Addam was wondering, even though responsibilities said that maybe he shouldn't have been, "Where's Minoth?"

Lora looked at him, glassy-eyed. "Eh? Minoth?" Jin, tight-lipped, didn't clarify.

Haze was the one crying, now. Pyra didn't look at her. Addam muttered a curse.

Down below, except now very, very far away indeed, Minoth had located Flora. Her belt buckle had come unhitched, and her boots were waterlogged, and her hair was absolutely drenched, but his sights and senses had been correct.

She felt incredibly solid in his arms. Compared to brunt contact from Malos's Monado, it was a world of difference, and he couldn't remember clearly what it felt like to touch another being, another body - he'd been the last one to board the Titan ship away from the Soaring Rostrum.

He had her. If they were going down, they were going together, and she wasn't going to have been an afterthought. But now...

Take a look around. No land for Titanpeds. So just what are you going to do?

In his mind, it had been so simple. Jump down, slough off the impact of the clouds, find Flora, and swim to shore. (What shore? No matter.) He'd seen it. It had been real.

And now? Well. Now it looked like the both of them were going to fall to Morytha right along with Malos. That would indeed be hell, and hell had, thus far, not been real.

On his own, he tread water with relative ease. With the deadweight body of a term-pregnant woman, no matter how petite, in his arms (as near as he could tell, she was still breathing), the same task became significantly more difficult.

Just as Minoth had gotten himself used to the rhythm, the waves started to surge for real. The change came not from within them but from without, from great beating gusts of wind and air.

Azurda. He'd flown over Aletta only after overseeing the transition of instructions and plans in Auresco, and had moved on to Hyber after that. He'd missed Flora's anti-grand disappearance completely, but at the slightest word from Addam, he'd known. Yes, he'd known.

"Old coot," Minoth muttered, more breathed, with as much affection as he'd ever mustered. Up they went. He held Flora ever-closer.

"Problems with women?" Azurda returned lightly, and the freshly-beached cowboy snorted (this a convenient predecessor to a cough, and many of them).

"I'd have done the same if it was Addam's husband they'd left."

"I don't think they would have left a man."

Nestled against Minoth's chest, itself aimed skyward, Flora coughed, her first sign of life since they'd lost her. If Minoth felt like waxing unduly romantic, he'd probably say that the baby kicked, too, hitting somewhere into his own abdomen.

But, this wasn't a story he planned to tell to anyone but Addam, after he'd apprised Flora in her wakefulness, and it was quite a few days before they were reunited on the shore of Fonsett, several hundred peds away from the Village Guardian.

"You're here." It was almost a question, almost an exclamation, but not half and half of either, rolled out in uncharacteristically gravelly tone.

Flora smiled at their prince, but it was weakly, twinged with flashes of pain. Wouldn't be long now, and the overboard event certainly hadn't helped things. Minoth hadn't thought of his disappointment for all that same while; it probably looked like they were admonishing Addam with their posture at this very moment.

"Not sure where else I'm meant to be, Addam," not Prince and maybe never Prince anymore, "but I saw something, and I went after it. I'll thank the Architect that I am here, and with Flora beside me to boot."

Addam stowed the survivor's guilt, just then. Surely he'd chew upon it later, but it was a hell of a thing to do, with his responsibility. Instead, he turned out to sea, and perhaps he thanked the Architect himself.

Addam clears his throat quite often, in practice; he makes all those rhetorically masculine sounds that precede snoring, and then of course he snores. However, if the concept of a man of any age over about twenty taking a trip to the bathroom to clear this throat nigh bodily, as a cat to a furball with the straightforward violence of it all, is intrinsic to you, please discount it directly, because Addam does not do that.

Addam also does not cough, very often - that's a habit of Lora's, in fact, when some food's gone down the wrong way. The axiom here is that there is a measurable, divisible difference between ahem and the other side of the dichotomy from achoo, that which lacks a pleasing onomatopoeia save for the actual terming word most commonly used to describe it. Please attend.

So: Addam's coughing, and that's not normal. At any other time, it would have been assumed to be a consequence of more jeopardizing levels of choking, but since they've just entered Dannagh not more than a few hours ago, and Milton's sardonically fear-mongering description of Minoth's forecasted desert ailment is quite fresh upon our young Mikhail's mind. You're done, his boon companion had said, and not meant to be mimicking Ardainian soldiers or their imperial high commander when he did it.

Do we, and thus rather they, take Mikhail at his word? He shuffles an off glance up at Minoth, who half scares half confounds half annoys him (you'll find that those together make quite whole fractions if you're up to a little smart addition), and Minoth raises an eyebrow back.

Mik is well skilled in the art of intimation to less-than-amenable targets, if they happen to share a similar - failing that common - goal. He raises one scrunched fist to his mouth in time with the judicious slight bent of his miniature back.

Another princely cough sounds. The eyebrow hoists up further.

When Minoth's crossed closer to be able to enact this impromptu rendezvous and/or tête-à-tête that Mik seems to be requesting...well, it takes a bit for him to muster up the additional composure at task. After all, he's got to look this strange Blade-man man-Blade hybrid in the eyes, which are piercing blue and surrounded by way more eyelashes and eyebrows and creases and cuts than any normal person should have, and say, "Addam doesn't cough."

And then the statuesque incomer has to look back at him and process the fact that a war orphan with a crack in his voice knows his prince better than he does, or that the same boy is pretending to do so just to take the piss out of him.

What can he say? All he knows is if Addam didn't cough, a year or two ago. He could have developed a myriad of new habits in his not-old age, given that much time, tossing aside all prior presupposed concern, or he could have not done the same. If the kid says it, the kid says it.

Now we take brief surveil: Milton has just broken away to pester Mythra, who's tripped up and after Haze and her two itinerant compatriots examining an inlet of violet bilgewater a little ways to the east, as he'd seen Mikhail looking pensive and decided not to push it. Brighid's attention has just been taken by something offhand Hugo mentioned to Addam that perhaps he shouldn't have, which pulls Aegaeon away as well.

Just, just, just. It's just Addam and the unlikely pair of secondhand M-s, then.

"You alright over there, Prince?"

And just what is Addam doing, anyway?

He's looking over the map and notes Shanelle gave them, of course. He's not looking at the cresting seal of Aureus Palace, up in the capital, and he's not even paying attention to what the offshoot groups are getting up to. When he hears Minoth call over, he falters first instead of perking his head right up.

Oh boy.

"Of course!" Cough, but stifled. "Right as rain, and all."

Minoth looks at Mik. Mik looks at Minoth. The former, or perhaps the latter, shakes his head.

"You wanna try that cough again and see if you still feel like lying to me?"

Ah, and now he's caught. If Addam had a tail, it'd be between his legs, but as it is, his waistcloth is being excited by the desert breezes independent of him sure enough. And, one more cough for good measure. Rather repetitive, isn't it? But that's always how it starts, as they say.

"Lora!" Minoth calls. He hears Jin repeat it at closer range shortly after, and by and by the whole group comes jogging back and becomes apprised.

"We don't have time to go back to Aletta..." Lora muses softly. "As much as I'm sure Addam would like to rest up at home, with Doctor Mungo right there."

And his wife, Minoth thinks, but doesn't bother to mention it. Home, where he hasn't been for a year, and where there's a militia taking up occupancy. Sure, maybe the bed's a little nicer, but not much else. Whatever nostalgic significance Lora's found to attach to it, well, let her on with it.

"Still, should you go back to Hyber?"

Addam's beginning to look more than a little gray and worn, in comparison to everyone else with swiftly warming complexions under the open sun. Minoth answers for him: "That sounds like a fine idea. I'm sure Teo would be happy to oblige."

"And should Mythra go with him?" Jin puts in. Of course, she huffs something awful at this.

"What, you think I need to stick with my babysitter? Can't you guys trust me even for a second?"

"Not to be looked after," Hugo admonishes, "but to look after Addam yourself."

Despite the tching noises of Sand Upas all around, the air goes somewhat still. She's not the healer. It's an oddly hollow suggestion. Everyone seems to realize, in that moment, how off-color something critical about Addam and Mythra's relationship is.

But, that's beside the point. What we're really after is that Mythra still hasn't found the right composure to say, "No thanks, I really don't think that's up to me." Instead, she punts back, "Nuh-uh. Not my responsibility." She pops the ps and bs with all vigor.

Now, the fast-twitching effects of the desert's infamous malady have progressed such that our patient has not only coughed several more times, each one more simultaneously wet and dry than the last, but has also drooped dramatically in posture. "It's alright, really," is what he attempts to get out, but the way his eyes start to swim immediately after betrays the hopeful illusion.

Nothing for it, Minoth thinks. "I'll go, then. Right?" He crosses his fingers that no one will try to bring up any tetchy technicalities about him actually being subject to get sick after all, owing to the human cells.

"Oh, but we'll need you for the digging, Minoth." Lora pauses to waggle her eyebrows as craftily as possible. "You know, buried treasure?"

Oh, that's sick; Minoth knows far too quickly that the prospect of sitting up with Addam, comfortable in a bed with him, is far more enticing than the prospect of sifting through sunny sand with Jin, or Aegaeon, or Mik and Milton, or whoever.

Heh. He'd even rather do that with Addam.

Goddamn it, he's a Blade, that's one of the things he was quite literally put on Alrest to be good at, like few others are (not very useful, after all, is it? not generally), and he'd rather be convalescing with a man who's caught fever despite best precautions than dig like he was made to do.

He doesn't know whether to be happy or furious - and whether or not a compulsion, a mandate, of sorts, of what he should or shouldn't do figures into it at all.

"Hey now," he begins to respond, at last, "there are nine of you, aren't there? That's plenty to be able to dig up buried treasure without me. You can make a day of it!"

And now he's sounding like Addam, to boot.

Mik pokes him, morosely. Neither is particularly sure what to make of their happenstance partnership.

"You should just go, if you want to. I don't think anyone would mind."

Is that poignant, coming from the boy once sold among slavers? Maybe it is.

So Minoth goes, and takes Addam's hand in his once they're out of eyesight, and wraps an arm around his shoulder to say something about how this is some bum excuse to get the two of them alone once they're out of earshot, and Addam can only sniffle broadly in response, which indicates a net zero about his current condition since he might as well be crying about the sentiment of it all.

Nothing comes of it, in the end, because with rest and fluids and all that requisite to proper treatment of the ailing, which Teo is vaguely aware of how to provide and which Addam himself knows far more about, Minoth's minute measure of experience within the nascent refugee camps notwithstanding, Addam's cough and congestion and other assorted symptoms fade within the day (barring a solid scary spell near noon when Minoth thought that the whole of Addam's lungs and at least strong portions of his skin had been seized by the all-encompassing ailment).

"From the look on Mik's face, anybody would have thought you were going to die," Minoth comments idly, letting Addam lean all over his shoulder that evening as he scribbles something nondescript and just foolish enough to get the prince to laugh.

Thinking on that, however, he doesn't laugh, only jokes. "Well, he's a very serious young chap, isn't he?"

"He's realistic, is what I would have thought. Probably just the medicine taking a little bit longer to kick in for you than for the others, maybe. You're a sight sturdier built, I'll say that much."

"Maybe so," Addam agrees. "This worked out well for us, anyway, though."

"Oh? You don't wish it was worse, so you could get away from the daily pound, and all of Mythra's trouble? Give the thing some real drama?"

One shifts, and the old bedframe highly unused to such weight creaks, and the other reciprocates in turn.

"You think I'm such a cad, then?"

"Nah. I'm just projecting."

Before, he was more sure it wasn't real. Before, it was just an image in his head, both pro- and pre- at once. Around corners, in Uraya and in Mor Ardain, places that could never capture what Torna was and more importantly weren't trying, he'd see her.

Something golden, whisking out of sight - not gold. That was important. It wasn't something generically yellow-bronze. It was something touched not with sunlight but with starlight. With the kiss of the heavens, with the sear of the breeze.

He never tried to talk to it - her, them, rather. He just let it turn on its heel and walk out of sight. It never tried to talk to him, either, was the thing. Leftover impression, creeping out from within the cracks and fissures, Mythra's ghost didn't need Minoth. Mythra's not-ghost hadn't needed Minoth either. So why should he care?

He hadn't needed her when she'd been there, either. He'd been focused on Addam, and also on Addam's like, in Lora. He'd watched her, carefully and closely as anything, but he hadn't needed her. They'd been as separate as any two beings would bother being. Didn't stray closer. Didn't push apart. Just were. Just had been.

She wouldn't poke over his shoulder like Addam or Lora or Haze would, wouldn't take interest in his odd quirks like Jin or Brighid or Aegaeon would. Wouldn't make a quiet peace out of staring up at him, like Hugo would.

She didn't care. So? So, neither did he. So Minoth, on his own and meaning a sum square of just about nothing to the world, turned and strode away, before an artificial intelligence's voice that sung with a human girl's heady cracks could call after him, "Wait."

"There's something I wish I had told you, then. There's something I didn't think I was ready for, yet."

That was then, anyway. That was before. Now, it's more than a flicker, it's an entire Architect-damned lightning strike, and Cole's old enough not to be bothered about it one way or the other (it's Iona he has to worry about, or whichever darling girl just like her), but this still catches his interest.

Because there's no thunder looming-booming after. Because it's just him, and a dark alleyway, and someone suspicious at the end of it. Someone gray and worn, with age glinting beaconry in their eyes.

Those eyes were windows. Those eyes were lamps, were thresholds. As Cole stepped closer, he wasn't sure if he wanted to step through, lest he fall. If that was even possible. And again, if he even wanted it to be.

Why him? Why now? Why this unforgotten promise and unfulfilled frivolous dream?

When he spoke, it wasn't to the spectre. Moreover, it was to himself.

"What's the point of this? You know nothing's ever going to come of it. You know you're lost to the world. You know everyone who ever meant anything thinks you dead, or as good as, in as many ways."

Brighid could come around, and she'd be a different woman. (Aegaeon, probably not noticeably so. Sadly enough.)

Haze could follow at Amalthus's habittails, and she'd be even more different yet. Jin would be changed yet ultimately so much, too much, the same.

And Pyra...

"Well? Can I help you?"

Again, a question to himself. Could he? Or was he beyond all that, so many countable centuries later? Those aren't the kind of things sentient creatures are meant to be able to count, on and up to one hand.

The spectre raises one, now. At the wrist, it seems to rotate, falter. Is it a supplication, a salutation, a dismissal and a forever goodbye?

It was too dark for Cole to say. He could assume any one of the three or more and make himself satisfied with it. In that way, it mattered not at all what he saw. It was almost decidedly an apparition of arbitration, of decisions unique to the self and satisfactory to the soul.

And that's not how a story ends, if you're telling it properly. Open questions shouldn't be easy, or it's a cop-out.

It's cause and effect. Have to have a reason. Have to have a story. Have to have a character that stands itself up straight.

A cop-out. Fitting, for Prince Addam Origo. Couldn't even stick around in death to tell it out right.

Somehow, Amalthus and Zettar, individually or in concerted tandem, had gotten the king to agree to detaining Addam for his apparent misdemeanor(s) in failing to fully protect the capital, and in becoming somewhat of an assailant himself before that point - again, apparently.

In a manner of speaking, anyway. It wasn't Addam who was held down. It wasn't Mythra, either. Not Lora, nor her Blades. Certainly not any of the generous and steadfast Ardainian contingent.

No, they took the only mutt Addam had running: Minoth. It'd be one thing for their overall team to be down a man and another for their leader to be down another partner, but it would be quite something else entirely for Minoth to be imprisoned for the sole crime of existing with a patch of darkened skin on his face that was a scar, and not just a birthmark. Well...more or less.

And Amalthus did have a sort of dastardly unsubtle flair for the cataclysmically theatrical, then, didn't he? Of course he did. The damned thing was an ugly, embarrassing flavor of hereditary.

The soldiers were not crude to him, as they led him away. It was doubtful that anyone of Onyx's ilk would be or would let their brethren be. But they were staunch, in their rustic refinement, and they did heed orders. These were passed down from the High Prince himself:

"Do not attend to the prisoner. Simply leave him in his cell to consider his station. Alone."

And deliver meals twice a day, and relent to paying him mind if he shouts. But Zettar knew that Minoth wouldn't, because Minoth was loyal. Oh, too, too loyal. To the wrong people, in his beady blue eyes.

Surely, if Maulton had followed through with his pledge to Sorrel's aid by then, he would have been served something properly Ardainian, but as it was the sinister set had no great knowledge of the recipes for Chilsainian kaschas that were on hand; to wit, they had no way of determining how to serve their prisoner food that was slop in all but name, so he was fed well enough. Not soup, because soup sloshed, but a generally respectable diet, that elusive ration aside.

For how long, anyway? A week? Probably about a week. They requested that Addam divest his acting Blade of all personal items, and he'd taken the quills and the notebooks with the due reverence of a deacon before a saint. The guns, as well. Plainly, Addam saw all of his purpose shed and tucked away in the holsters, lost to the both of them.

"I don't understand it, Minoth," he'd murmured wobblingly. And what even was there to understand? Minoth had shrugged, winced. "It's for the greater good, Prince. You don't have time to spare dealing with them now. This wasn't the right adventure for me, that's all."

As if he was dying. As if his uncountable, undetermined time was up. Addam's mouth set into a grim line, and even Mythra reeled out a spare measure of patience for him.

"We'll be back, got it? This isn't the end of your story. Not by a long shot."

He almost laughed at the untender parrot. Almost. And she was right, anyway. He was a hard hand at sleeping when his mind was full, and with no one to talk to and no way to keep track of his thoughts, that oft-realized reality would be inescapable. So time would move on, and he'd be watching it.

Actually: No cell. No cellar. Just a bare, spare room. It was as if Amalthus had temporarily conceived of and then coaxed an outlaw of his own experiments, mandating that all active Flesh Eaters be returned to chambers reminiscent of the purgatory they should be occupying, if departed from their Driver. Their original Driver, if you were feeling charitable, and obviously Amalthus wasn't.

He did push-ups.

(How many was that, fifty? Plus the other twenty makes thirty more to a century, and it'll be that long until I can do that many in a row. Heh. Probably.)

He whistled. He hummed.

(Now where have I heard that before? Why does it sound so familiar...?)

He rubbed doggedly at the bags under his eyes.

(It's like I've got an entirely separate plane on my face. You could plant trees there. If I was a normal Blade, maybe someday they would. I oughta ask Jin about that. Maybe someday they will.)

He pulled out curiously wiry hairs from the crown of his head.

(Makes a guy shudder. Gives me the creeps. Say...is that ever gonna grow back? I should be bald by now, if it's not. How many years has it been, anyway?)

He popped his ears, tugged at them, raked every possible curl out of his sideburns.

(Maybe they'll get sympathetic and let me out for good looks and good behavior. Ha. As if.)

He wasted time. By his lonesome, Minoth was absolutely atrocious at wasting time.

And of all the things he thought of, the reason why they'd put him here wasn't really one. It wasn't as if he ordinarily expected Zettar and Amalthus to come up with sensible decisions that roundly roundabout served the people around them, instead of just themselves and their nepots.

Really, they suspected a similar kind of favoritism between him and Addam. In other words, people were only allowed to strike up unlikely partnerships if no one would ever come to them by the likely way otherwise. They considered Minoth's past actions a snub - probably even thought he should apologize for them. But he wouldn't.

Somewhere around the third day (well, he hadn't lost track that fast, couldn't have, but it was late, anyway), there was a knock, different to those he'd heard come previously to accompany the moderate trays adorned with moderate meals. It was...slower. Almost languid. Yet, still stiff.

Almost trademarkedly Amalthus. Only thing was, he wouldn't knock if he'd come alone, or if he'd come with Zettar. He had too much feigned (or, possibly, real) dominance to assert for that.

So there was someone with him, and it wasn't a guard. Whoever it was had made his Driver uncharacteristically reticent on the part of saying Minoth's name. Usually, he said it enough to make the sound close upon grating to his Blade's ears. Irrational though it may have been, Minoth still harbored those uncomfortable compulsions.

But, again, as Amalthus wasn't alone, none of Minoth's expectations would be of any use here. He stood from his chair, rolled back his shoulders, and approached the door.

He knocked back. The door opened. There was no one there at Amalthus's eye level, so he met his Driver's yellow eyes.

"She wanted to see you. I have...no judgement to pass on this matter."

And now Minoth held the gaze quite purposefully, because if she was who he thought she was, he knew he'd throw up his mostly-empty guts if he had to look at them both in the same frame and field of vision and view.

He stared. Amalthus stared back. Minoth felt his jaw set simultaneously backwards and forwards. It was a dare, not as it always had been but as it seldom had been, because once Minoth had gotten up such requisite courage, he'd skedaddled.

And if Amalthus would just...

"A soldier will escort you when your time is up. Lady Origo."

Minoth sucked in a breath through his teeth, cast both eyes down and to his right side - away from the scar. It was good it hadn't been her first name, but not all that much.

Flora, however? Flora was very, very good. It was a basic, axial fact of Minoth's minor universe. He'd missed her, oh, how he'd missed her, but he'd never once considered that she might appear here, in this not-dungeon at the end of the hall.

Flora was also very, very pregnant, and all at once Minoth felt disgustingly guilty for having ever become known to her, such that this day would arise and she'd put herself in danger to come to him.

Hanging around Addam, who'd already been thrust into strange and unseemly responsibilities above and beyond his ken, was justifiable. Certainly, he was a hell of a lot more broken than his prince, but the two of them matched. Completed each other, even. But Flora? Dear, sweet, dependable Flora?

It was below her station, and she'd never even really had one.

But come she had.

She didn't seem to mind the obvious fact that Minoth wanted anything but to have to speak first.

"I'm afraid this doesn't make very much sense to me either, love. How are you holding up?"

She was peering kindly up at him, making that peculiar brand of eye contact that didn't strike bang on the mark and spared him from any possible discomfort that could result. He took her hands, and they were cold. They were always cold; it was just her way.

"Eh. I've had worse," Minoth said. He wasn't lying. The Flesh Eater experiment - procedure, whatever you wanted to call it - had been far worse, and so had been the years of drifting without any Driver at all. He couldn't complain. He wouldn't complain. Flora hadn't come to hear him complain.

She was here for...what?

Removing one of his hands, Minoth reached up to cradle Flora's left cheek, and she leaned into the careful touch. Her face was always considerably warmer then her hands (a passing thought came that it was usually his wont and duty to make it even warmer, by kissing it as much as he was able, but only a passing thought).

"If that's all you need, I'd be perfectly happy to provide, but I would like to step out of the doorway first."

Ah. Right. As they moved back into the heart of the room, Flora slipped easily underneath Minoth's arm, and then she was clung to his side as if she belonged there. As if...

"How much time did he give you?"

She frowned. "I don't suppose much more than a quarter of an hour. Azurda told me I couldn't bring you anything."

Minoth nodded. "Not a chance. It's uncanny the way Amalthus can get Tornan soldiers to jump at his whims. Far be it from me to say that they're cruel, but they're certainly not my kind of good old boys."

"So what have you been doing with yourself?"

"Thinking about nothing," Minoth answered, perhaps again honestly. He chewed at one corner of his lip as he did it. "Everything's in one side and out the other. Apparently all those years of writing have made me a cock-up at actually holding onto anything of merit in my mind."

Somehow he was able to convince her to sit first, and arranged himself cross-legged at one side of the chair (a serviceable ladder-back number, non-ornamental and of no substantial girth). Without further prompt from Flora, then, Minoth laid his head in what was left of her lap, held one of her wrists loosely to his cheeks as the other gently carded through his hair, and breathed in her perfume: something he most certainly wouldn't forget for as long as they kept him.

Aletta. A place that had stood unaltered for many years prior, and would stand unaltered for many years yet. It was just a manor, just an old stone keep overlooking a moor-turned-farm, by a port to the Cloud Sea and the ribs of the Tornan Titan.

Just a place. Any old place. And yet Minoth felt so drawn to it that even without having corresponded with Addam for months, close on a year, even having shunted any news of the prince's whereabouts or whatsdoings almost in living, writhing fear of such news, he made his way there (he'd already toured most everywhere else) in the hopes of finding something more than just a place. You may laugh, you may say it's tired, you may say it's overdone cliché, but the possibility did stand, and so Minoth went to stand next to it.

There was no one at the entrance to the manor. It was early evening, after all - maybe they were taking dinner. Minoth knocked, but not loud enough to disturb anyone, because if he could have just warped into the place like a shadow, leaving none the wiser of his location, he would have done so.

Still, no one answered. This was...should have been expected, all things considered, de facto rather than de jure, but Minoth, arms crossed and knees drawn in, willfully shrugged it off as no one being there to answer, in any sort of close enough range.

He tried the handle. It gave. He tried his strength. It gave.

Aletta opened to him. He stepped inside. The sun burnished itself proud and all-knowing over the top of the doorframe, just before it had swung fully shut.

Then, no sooner had Minoth crossed the parlor but a voice jackrabbited out at him. Whatever kind of low-springy half-sprightly half-doddering sort of woodland creature you could conjure up...that was Mungo.

He called out almost immediately, almost belying his evident fear (rather, pointedly betraying it; if he'd once been a coward, he was now standing on the folded remnants of that trait). "Who is that? Prince Addam, is that you?"

So Addam was expected back, or then again not quite? Minoth did not, in truth, actually remember the good doctor's name, from what sparing interaction they'd had, but he did recognize the voice without question, and he considered that a benign enough clue.

"Not the prince." And then who? "An old friend."

The voice, issuing up from the flight of stairs before him, stuttered only a moment in its tracks. "You'd better not be lying, young man!" Oh, so he sounded it, did he? "My good nature tells me to tell you that any friend of Prince Addam is a friend of mine, but I can't be sure you don't know that..."

There came a shuffling, scuffling sound. "Hang on just a moment! Don't move!"

So Minoth didn't move. He glanced around, observing the remarkable just-a-place-ness of it all, and then became aware of the scuffling sound now shuffling up the steps.

And then, Mungo appeared. Clad in a deep blue-green tunic and gray pants and boots, his figure was solid - demonstrably more so than the fluff of his brows and beard.

"You..." The exam began immediately. "I know you. You're..."

An old friend, as I said. Or is that not so easy to surmise? Tch. I never would have guessed.

"You're Minoth!"

Said Flesh Eater nearly staggered back in his shock. Yes, I'm Minoth, but how on Alrest did you manage to recall that, out of thin air? Took you long enough!

That's, of course, what he didn't say. What he did say was a gruffly cordial, "That's me. If Addam's not here, then I don't really have any business to trouble you with."

Up went the fluffy white brows, very nearly but only very nearly revealing the whites of Mungo's own eyes. "You're looking for Addam? Here? I thought everybody knew that wasn't worth the trouble, nowadays."

Oh? "Is Addam no longer the Lord of Aletta?" Minoth could feel himself stiffening, shrinking inwards, again. What a damned stupid thing to do - trespassing onto royal Tornan holdings when he hadn't even bothered to make sure that their acting owner even lived there anymore? It was a good thing he was no longer any semi-official envoy of the Praetorium. Architect knew what special hell he'd end up getting sent to for making fools out of the likes of his former Driver, in their name.

But Mungo quelled that particular fear: "Oh, no, no. Certainly, Addam is the Lord of Aletta. Many of us would even like to see him become more than that, but the prince has never expressed interest in such things. It's just that he's been traveling with the Aegis for the past...oh, four or five months, I'd say."

Oh boy. Here goes nothing. "And his wife?"

The flash of joy washing over Mungo's face was instantaneous, mixed though it was with a peculiar sort of hum. "Why, Lady Flora is right here - and a good thing, too! She's been ill ever since the pregnancy."

The what?

Minoth tried his best to appear keenly interested, instead of baldly shocked. He had no idea if it was working, and likely never would. In that respect, did it even matter? "You're telling me Flora's pregnant, and Addam's been leaving her here alone like that for five months?"

"Oh, no!" Oh no again. Very helpful. "He returned once, after some months, and that was when, ah...it happened."

It. This, unlike much of the rest of Mungo's babbling speech, was broadly elucidatory.

"Can I get her anything, then? Can I help you?"

Hands clasped behind his waist, Mungo shook his head, seeming nearly forlorn. The eclectic, electric, magnetic range of his emotional display was, quite genuinely and literally, something to behold. "No, I'm afraid rest is all the doctor can order for her right now. Most days it's just nauseau, but sometimes she catches fever."

"Do you think she'd like it if I sat with her?"

Mungo shrugged, took another look at the scar and the ponytail and the blue eyes that were currently roving, instead of piercing. Assessed. Quantified. Qualified. The output: "I certainly would."

And with that, he disappeared out the door of the manor, apparently fully content with whatever caretaking job Minoth hadn't even yet promised to do, and Minoth was left to his own devices - really, just as he'd originally willed it.

The only problem was, he now had a purportedly feverish Flora on his hands, or under them. Well...only problem, meet only choice. He found the master bedroom without much difficulty, and recognized the angle of a chair placed near the right bedside before he recognized the brown lump superimposed somewhere around the sheets (above, below? the top cover was a gentle sort of wheat color).

"Flora?"

A muffled "Mmmph..." was the only answer. Not the most attractive sound, but once Minoth's eyes had adjusted to the relative dimness of the room and started to discern and differentiate hair from pillowcase, duvet from leg, he began to see Flora, and despite the ashen tone of her face, he began to remember why exactly he felt such love for this place.

So with a careful hand, he brushed her bangs just far enough out of the way that he could kiss her forehead - the right side, as it was what was facing more or less in the direction of up. She rustled again, made another noncommittal groan, and then a more immediately recognizable word:

"Addam...?"

Oh. Well. That was sweet, if you were into that sort of thing, but if her eyes weren't open to see him, then he wasn't quite sure how he could definitively correct her wrongful interpretation. The general haziness of the room seemed to prohibit anything above the barest whisper, and he'd already been as loud as he could bear to be just saying her name the first time, which apparently hadn't been enough to convince.

Her eyes were still shut; he swept the bangs back over them as far as they would go for good measure.

He sat in the chair, legs splayed out and hands interlaced finger by finger through the thick gloves over the buckle centering his belt. All he'd promised to do was sit. If she needed a cool washcloth, or whatever it was humans needed to get through fevers (he'd never had one, of course, of course), then he could probably find the bathroom, and if not that some washroom, and if not that...the kitchen?

Just a place. Minoth sat there, and distantly observed the corner of the wall adjoining the ceiling, the convergence point of three lines each on its own perpendicular linear axis. Idly, he poked the index finger of his left hand into the palm of his hand, and then vice versa. A bouncing motion. A rhythm, which didn't belong in this room where nothing moved. It was late summer, nearly true autumn, and the air was still somewhat hot.

Mungo had said four or five months. Fever or not, Minoth doubted that Flora would ever, consciously or subconsiously, allow herself to roll over to one side, almost prone at times, if this was anywhere substantial past the first month. From what little Minoth knew about human pregnancy from assistance in the refugee camps, anyway. He'd refused to learn anything about it from Amalthus himself.

The room was quiet. Quite quiet. Fliers and Skwarors buzzed and stirred outside. If all he needed do was sit here and think of a fresh washcloth or glass of water every now and then, Minoth would be very glad to assist Mungo somewhat habitually. Maybe he'd even get to see his prince's princess face up, eventually.

"You're back."

The statement still trailed off, somewhat, but not enough to be questionably indistinct. Minoth sat up a little straighter, but didn't engage.

"Left me here."

That was true. Addam had left Flora at Aletta, with no intention to also leave Minoth with her, in addition to Mungo (if he'd even intended that much out of the good doctor).

"'S not right."

Minoth wasn't prepared to settle that one. He figured by this point he might as well speak up: "This isn't Addam, Flora. This is Minoth."

"You think more about Minoth then you do about me."

Her words were still projecting right into the down of the pillow. Still muggy, still hazy.

Minoth reached tentatively for Flora's hand, flopped out palm-up, and wriggled almost like a fish when he tried to touch it. Jumped a little, even.

"Shouldn't have let you do it."

Do what? Get her pregnant? Was there something about Addam - something serious, something character-deep - that Minoth didn't know?

This time, his attempt at purchase on her hand was firmer. It caught. Flora jerked, with the scorn and with the fever.

"This is Minoth, Flora. Minoth."

"What does he have to do with it?"

He doesn't, Minoth thought desperately, and maybe he shouldn't even be here, but he can't leave now. Architect damn it, I can't leave now.

A terrible wince came over Flora's face, like she'd been attacked by something deep in her mandibles. She almost looked more inconvenienced, more put out, than pained. Regardless, Minoth knew no recourse to chase that expression away other than to get up from the chair entirely, and lie down beside her, softly shifting her body closer to the center of the bed and resting her cheek on his Core.

"I'm here, my love."

He only murmured it into her hair - he absolutely could not fathom the idea of saying something like that plain out loud. Confidently, even.

Like she was his to hold. And it wasn't that she wasn't, exactly, but...

Ah. Well. It was that he couldn't love her free of remorse unless Addam was there too. Not even about the glints of infidelity that'd get simmering if they hadn't already worked this out, just that he was "love" and so was she, and neither were fully settled until their own love had come home.

But enough about that. She was the one who needed taking care of, not the hastily-bandaged constantly-open wounds of his scattered emotions.

The winces and the gray tones kept up for some measurable minutes after, along with some unintelligible murmurs, but eventually Flora fell back to sleep - the sleep that she had presumably been in before this wave of weakness and pain - and Minoth shifted up to the headboard, turning her closer to face-up.

Of course she was annoyed, even scorned. Anyone would have the right to be. What Minoth couldn't understand was why; why had their relationship been left in this such obvious and brutal disarray? That she was so intent on seeing him, both for her own comfort and for the opportunity of this argument, that her fever composed her husband in the silhouette of Minoth?

It was a human thing, in a human place. When Flora awoke, color returned to her cheeks and eyes blinking with welcome moisture instead of lingering crust, Minoth explained it to her.

"You thought I was Addam," he said with a gentle smile. "I hate to think what would happen if you flatter me like that too often."

"Is that all I said?" Flora wondered carefully, worrying at the ties at the ends of her braids. "That doesn't seem like much to go on."

"No, it wasn't," Minoth admitted. He stroked just as carefully at the freckles on her bare shoulder. "You also told Addam, who was me, that you shouldn't have let him do it."

"It?"

That was when it happened. You know.

Inclining his head down slightly further, Minoth met Flora's eyes, and her confusion turned half to embarrassment, half to understanding.

"Oh. It."

Indeed.

"No, he guessed as well as either of us could have that I would feel this way, but we made the decision together. I knew he'd be gone. He'll be back soon."

"You're sure of it?"

Flora, who'd been about to kiss Minoth's cheek, scowled and ducked her head back down to rest against his neck, where his collar would be had he not removed his jacket and a fair portion of the rest of his armor.

"No. But you're here, anyway. So that's fine enough."

Minoth...well, he had to agree with that. Couldn't argue, anyway.