the golden nothing
Recommended Listening: Seinfeld Theme
Haze & Hugo - "Hello, 911? How are you?"
Brighid & Minoth - "Some people should just give up. I have."
Aegaeon & Jin - "Well, do you feel anything?" "Feel? What's that?"
Mythra & Flora - "I'm depressed. I'm inadequate. I got it all!"
Minoth & Lora - "Look at me. Look at my face. Am I beautiful?"
Lora & Haze - "What kind of a person are you?" "I don't know."
Addam & Mythra - "For I am Origo, lord of the idiots."
Jin & Addam - "That's a shame."
Hugo & Aegaeon - "I got jiggy with it."
Flora & Brighid - "I am different, yeah."
"Quickly, Haze, he's bleeding out!"
If this were Torna, 3564, Haze would have raised unshaking hands to the space just above the heaving chest of the victim, but as it wasn't, her hands and elbows and nails all clattered at the phone headset as she scrabbled to dial those three critical digits.
"Hello, 911?"
"Haze!"
Since the dispatch's "911, what is your emergency?" took slightly longer to say than the almost equally perfunctory greeting that had come on the other side from the caller, Haze had time to hear it, and respond more graciously, "Oh, yes, how are you?"
"HAZE!"
"Never did I have as much trouble with a group of mercenaries as with the ones out of Uraya."
"Uraya, you say?" Brighid countered, edging away from half listening to more like two-thirds.
Minoth shook his head. "Ah-ah, no, this is a strictly apolitical conversation."
"Who said anything about politics?"
"Brighid..."
She flicked her own mane, now exiting, or at least pretending to. "Just trying to make conversation."
"So were these mercenaries, but their conversations always managed suspiciously close to smearing Blades."
"Trying too hard," the Jewel sniffed. "Too much pretense, subtlety. Some people should just give up. I have."
"I'm sure I saw you twist your ankle, Aegaeon. Let's have Haze take a look at it."
Aegaeon's normally expressionless face bore a bit of something like mystification. "Are Blades truly capable of such a thing?"
"There's a first time for everything," Jin said, surprising himself with a first time for such an inane comment, too. "And sometimes wounds aren't even detectable by the person who has them."
"A true enough statement," groaned Aegaeon. Yet, for all his mental gear-turning, the rest of him walked erect.
Indeed a quandary. "Well, do you feel anything?"
Aegaeon blinked, blankly. "Feel? What's that?"
"I happen to think you've got a lot going for you, you know."
"Oh, will you can it? Addam said the same thing." And many others not worth mentioning, which is why she didn't, but hoped for latitude all the same.
Flora frowned. "I was afraid so."
"Then you said it, why?"
"We've all got our faults, Mythra," the prince's wife said, trying to play it off.
"Right," nodded Mythra, "all of us." Really, did these humans never learn? "Even me, with so much going!" (It was true, even her indignance sparkled.) "I'm depressed. I'm inadequate. I got it all!"
"I can't believe he rejected you."
That was enough to jerk Minoth up from his repose of self-flagellation. "I know!" he cried, downed forearm still bracing on the table as the other bounced support to accusatory index finger. Abashed: "I mean, honestly."
"Pinky promise?" Lora asked, offering.
Minoth ignored her. "Look at me. Look at my face. Am I beautiful?"
"Doesn't matter what I think."
"Lora!"
"Hey, if I think you're not, then he must, right? And if I don't, then you win either way."
"I fail to see your logic."
"Doesn't matter what I think," hummed Lora. Minoth groaned.
"You left the campsite without me?!"
Wildflowers in hand, Lora darted forward and just that imperceptible bit to the side to avoid the brunt of Haze's windy blast. This was as much for her own protection as it was for the weeds'.
"I thought you said we were going to spend the day together!"
"Well, yes, if it's only mid-morning-"
"I wanted to wake up next to you!"
"Well, I didn't mean the whole day--"
"Truly, Lady Lora, what kind of a person are you?"
"I don't know," Lora moaned. "I just thought we were taking a nice morning walk."
"You let Brogyn take my credit card?!"
"What else is your credit card for? He's the quartermaster, isn't he?"
"Mythra," Addam hissed, "I should think you know enough about incompetence not to buy that off its face! He's quartermaster in name only," the last three words came between teeth.
Mythra huffed, making a show of turning her chin. "Well, if I'm incompetent, and Brogyn's incompetent, then maybe that says something."
Truth be told, they had only one thing in common, and it wasn't the incompetence.
Addam threw up his hands.
"Of course - for I am Origo, lord of the idiots!"
"I mean, do you have any idea the pressure it puts on a man? To be taken from his dream of a life's work, farming, after years of being scorned, and told he has to awaken the most powerful Blade in the world, so that the both of you can set about putting a stop to the other?"
Jin of all people knew that humans often spoke without thinking. Usually Addam was courteous and well-meaning, with his politics about him.
But this?
Jin, who knew the Paragon had many times been tasked with worse, shook his head. "That's a shame."
"Would you care to repeat that, Your Majesty?"
Aegaeon's tone was careful, careful, careful. Well, it was always careful, but here even moreso, as much from unsurety as from prudence.
He was a little too careful, though; Hugo caught on. (When did he not? He was, as ever, cunning and perceptive.)
"Should I not, Aegaeon?"
Just as innocent as a babe.
"You are among friends here, Majesty. Please, at your discretion."
"I seem to find my discretion lacking."
"Please."
"I...got jiggy with it."
"You're sure?"
(It was not Hugo's discretion Aegaeon doubted, but his posture, and manner of dress.)
"I don't know why you're so offended, Flora. He could have asked any of us, but he asked you."
Stirring her tea in agitation, Flora tried her best to avoid Brighid's invisible gaze (a surprisingly impossible task for all but Aegaeon).
"That's supposed to make me feel better, isn't it? But look at the rest of you - I'm the most normal one here!"
"You might even say, the only normal one."
"You might," conceded Flora distractedly.
"Which makes you the abnormal one."
"Abnormal?"
"Different."
The spoon slowed in its circuit, considering, considering...then changed direction.
Dreamy-voiced: "I am different, yeah."