recycled air

---

Minoth's never had an especially high opinion of himself.

If his hand were forced, he might admit that he's always been serviceable, or just about, when it's come, variously, to others calling upon him to do something, be something, get something done.

He was a pretty fair mercenary, as far as either Vandham or Vronka was concerned. Could dispatch with small fry or the big guns, no problem - in fact, he excelled at leveling his own guns at those. Loved a challenge as meaty as that, as the golden country's golden monsters.

Was he the most precise? No. Was he the quickest on his feet, when not attacking? No. Could he do squat for healing, without a Driver to don a Classic Medal (and he'd tried it himself, oh, how he'd tried - not even a Tachyon Chip for his event horizon's trouble)? No.

He can't even heal himself, regeneration-wise. Couldn't, anyway. Now...moot point.

But he got the job done. Continually, he reminds himself: that's all that matters. You got the job done. Lots of 'em.

Kids. Food. Shelter. Clothes. Anything a freedom fighter was fit for.

Lots of others did less with more. And couldn't write anything down to show for it, either.

(Minoth's known throughout the world, no matter who likes it or not, for the things he wrote down and got staged (make a show of it, see), and he wonders sometimes if he ever actually got to the core of what it was he was trying to portray; if he wasn't missing something, somehow, that skirted around the whole business of every bit. If he was ever really a real person.)

He's not a hack, not like that.

But...worthy of immortality?

If anyone is that, it's not him.

Not one-of-the-cursed-ones failed-experiment you-drivers-do-have-your-uses if-only-he-saw-me who-woulda-thunk Minoth.

Yet nevertheless, he's here. He's here in the in-between world, with Rex and Nia and the rest, because he'd volunteered himself.

 

"I dunno if you're stable enough, old man."

"Listen, if I'm stable, he's stable," Nia had thrust back, bristling.

"And here I thought you were against the idea," Minoth had drawled, and received a fiercer catalyst's eye than he ever had for his trouble.

 

She was against the idea, but not against it enough to do any more than weakly protest, once Minoth got going.

Let me be there, let me help. Let me do something for you, all of you, that amounts to more than just...telling stories.

And retelling them, and making vague, wistful promises on old Drivers' heads.

Waking up ghosts.

Because really, being sealed in a data crystal wasn't any more surefire (any more stable) than being one of the waking ones. Probably, it was a lot less. So actually, it was just selfish. Minoth didn't want to die with the rest, a sealed story, over and done, not like that. If there was a problem, he was dying with his boots on, next to his men.

Scavenging and reconaissance and puttering around, his favorites. Not much for talking, if you can believe that. He follows the Liberators cagily, more like a Rare Blade than a Legendary when it comes to use cases. He's a specialist, an assistant, doesn't operate on his own.

(Even though he could, you know. He could.)

And when A announces that Alpha intends to do away with the old world, Minoth knows exactly what he's talking about.

Stale. Mythra, Miss Not-a-single-bath-in-five-hundred-years, never went stale, because an Aegis, the eternal administrator incarnate, never does.

Not Malos either.

Malos had died, for all intents and purposes. Ragged breathing and all.

Maybe he hadn't deserved to.

Blades were treasured, storied. The very transient embodiment of the world, just as Jin said. Not culture, but the other half. The half of culture that isn't just human, handicrafts and politics. Blades bore out their birthing Titans better than the humans did, at times. At many, many times.

Nobody ever looked at a Blade, spun up several awakenings deep, and said "haven't you had enough?"

(Haven't we had enough of you ?)

Maybe they should have.

But here's Minoth, a walking scab, and Mythra and Nia had asked him, several times, are you sure you're okay to go on? Because, we can do it, and we'd like - selfish, us - to do it, to see you healthy, but if you want to die...

Funny how, for him, dying was a question. A maybe. A possibility. A "consider it, at least, won't you?"

Imagine Minoth living with a limit of terms, with a hand on his wrist. He should be so lucky, to get to choose his exit, now.

And he's made it to the end, so he should get to be out, and out, and out.

But he was scared. Still is. In fact, it's much easier to accept that he might die, for fake, in the Aionios reality (within the same suspension of it as anyone else, that is), and then just never wake up, outside. Can't do a thing if I'm dead, and can't be alive if no one else can do a thing.

He's not as old as Mythra - as Pneuma, to say. He's not as old as Jin, judging from the partial Titan transformation. As years go, Minoth is not the personification of Alrest's anciency. Take Azurda, even. And he was born an old man even better than Minoth was.

Minoth can speak to what it is to be perpetuated, though, in so many iterations full of so much decay. To keep staying, and staying, and going again.

And Aionios, the world, is perpetuated. The system keeps going, sure. Colonies and soldiers, commanders and Consuls. But there's no reason.

Minoth's opinion of himself is at least high enough that he figures he could give a reason.

Ask a soldier why? Because. Because the Consul said so, if you're lucky.

No people. No pores. No love.

No reason. Just like any war, and then a little more, no reason.

Oh, Minoth hates when there's no reason.