The Winter's Tale

Minoth's gloves grow stiff in the chill of a spontaneous cold snap on Spessia, somewhere Jin has only just been and gone. Makes it a little harder to dig, either by hand or by the grip of his gloves upon his guns taking the form of knives, but it's liveable, at least. The core of him feels as warm as it ever has when away from Addam for this long.

It's never bothered him before, and it won't bother him now. Who could complain of something so petty, when there are bodies to exhume and tracks to be uncovered?

He switches to using his bare hands without much thought.

Addam had refused to come. He'd been in one of his distant moods, staring out at the invisible whirlpool where the ship had sunk so many nights ago. And that had been a few nights hence itself, factoring in the time it had taken Minoth to get here.

The wind continued its cruel crusade, heedless of what time of year it was supposed to be.

The wind is an actor, dutifully interreacting its part. Minoth is impervious to the scene, or so he thinks.

The sun sinks, right down to hell. He finds nothing, in the end. No Core Crystals, no ether bindings' corpses.

So maybe it had been a fool's errand. So maybe Addam has been right to insist that all hope is lost, with this failure so great under their belts.

He returns with the same absence of ceremony, listless as a fragment of Addam's empty pattern.

Addam looks at him dolefully, empty-eyed. "You're back," he notes, as if it needs to be said.

Minoth says nothing and removes his gloves to wash up, maybe even scrounge a bite to eat. Say, doesn't anybody do that anymore?

His fingertips are black, almost colorless as the injured layers of skin camouflage beautiful lines of ether.

"You hurt yourself! Minoth, why-"

Minoth cuts him off with a clumsy gesture. "S'alright, Prince. Now we match."