unhappiness absurdism
Chapter 01: minojiarg
Chapter 02: lorevie
Chapter 03: eleosel
Chapter 04: nuwakumo
Chapter 05: minselia
Chapter 06: minofrye
Chapter 07: hoperess
Chapter 08: protao
Chapter 09: crysurd
Chapter 10: sophowl
Unfortunately, the kind of prince that Ga Jiarg displays himself as is not the kind of prince Minoth knows his way around. Well, not even displays - the noble Wrothian is the genuine article of war smarts and proud posture. There's no niche, no gaps to fill.
Sort of a warrior poet, though, and that way is one Minoth keeps quite close to breast. A great cat with an appreciation for the arts and the nuance of necessity who, if not swiftly counseled, abandons it all to go whole-claw for ideals?
Yeah, that's what Minoth's talking about. And he's gorgeous, too.
There are no illusions to be had about Addam's children - really, none. After all, to think of what their father had been reputed to be, versus what he'd actually turned out like, Lora doesn't even have to be stern as she marshals herself.
It's nothing much. Only the Lord of Aletta's firstborn daughter being named after you, where before you'd have sprinted off to hide at the very mention.
Evie doesn't know any of this, the hubbub of knights and settlers and royal pardons' eternal decree. She only knows that it's fun to test her strength with Lady Lora's braid.
Eleonora, pretty little control freak that she is, hides as well as she can that she really doesn't appreciate divisionless operatives running around taking missions that don't have her say-so stamped on them. At least, you know, Neilnail had asked first!
But Liesel is as Liesel does, Elle soon discovers. It's not flirting - not stepping out on her "bestie" - that has pink undershave sauntering up to the console and asking not for permission or what the old-fashioned would call "writs" but instead for the direction of the nearest lady BLADE in need of service.
Really nervey. Really. Like, the most.
The decision has already been made, the plans set into motion. It is the arrival of the Nahobino that heralds Nuwa and Yakumo's final act.
Maybe they're as bad as the rest. Maybe not. It's Yakumo who believes himself unable to uphold the order - that is, the natural way of the new world - he seeks.
Nuwa believes him capable of anything. It's not her place to debate him; she's simply not interested in it.
As long as he lives, so too shall she live. And if he dies...let the world die.
Pretty words...indeed, Shohei has such pretty words.
"He is fool, of course." Selia's tentacles waved disapprovingly. "This is easy to say."
And yet she had helped him. She had spoken none of honor, of following up on the effectiveness of the special beast-taming incense. She was not, it seemed, especially disappointed to see its misuse.
But then, these connections themselves were native to Mira.
It was unnecessary to rationalize, to validate an otherwise unorthodox friendship. They all bent to these unspoken rules.
"Min'barac pursues his curiosity. He follows Ovah. And I...I appreciate his kindness. Earnestness, humans would say."
No fools. No suffering. Only fighting, fascinating spirits.
"C'mon, lemme see it."
"See what?"
(Obviously, Minoth feigned ignorance. Couldn't ever be that easy, even when Frye was handing it right over, open-ended.)
Frye scoffed, cracked his neck in a gameful beckon. "The scar, man, the scar! Look, mine was a glass eye back on Earth - can you tell?"
(Apparently, mim eyeballs were able to roll farther back than Minoth'd recollected. Much.)
Must've been the robo-bodies that'd gotten Frye so voluble. Either that or he was trying to put the moves on Minoth, and didn't know it. What, no war story about the varmint that gave it to him?
Maybe if Hope knew the entirety of Murderess's glory-box secrets, she'd be aghast, at a loss, stripped bare of sensibility.
As it is, women with strong, not to say domineering, demeanors have an easy way with the most-beloved Mediator. Her generosity is no accident; she intends upon it.
But, in fact, Murderess has no intention of picking up Hope, a pretty penny, and adding her to the Effinger fortune. Hope has no view to the cracks in Sharon's façade, under the big Miran sky.
Lovely princess. Confident Curator.
Maybe Hope'll pick up a trick or two, for her unwitting mistress.
Everyone else - these people, personalities, in the Netherworld - calls them Nahobino; half a role, half a name. Probably, some mysterious third half of something else unknowable.
But Tao still calls them Chiaki, fondly. They were never such close friends, and yet she converses with them as if there is still humanity to be found here. Aren't they regarded, near-universally, as wholly a demon?
She's a goddess, a young woman with extraordinary senses. To be here in Da'at must be...suffocating.
Nonetheless, she finds the patience to act as any sentimental person would. Chiaki, only abstractly afforded that privilege, is thankful.
"Is it, now, terribly late or terribly early?"
Only at such a pale, mooning hour would Crys be so space-headed as to consider such a question. Isurd, perhaps, had pondered it privately on separate occasions, but hearing someone else speak the thought aloud further cemented his wonderment that Crys, the Kevesi off-seer, was somehow so like him, the Agnian strategist.
"The next date in the cycle begins at 0000 hours. Day, however, begins at 0600 hours. So, it depends which side of 0300 we're on..."
Crys stared at him with sallow-sagged eyes. "Isurd."
"Yes?"
"Too somber a time for semantics."
"You want to tell me that you're a coward? Oh, I know you're a coward. And the things you've done in spite of it...they say that's bravery, but I say it doesn't make you brave."
Howl, the consummate pouter, looks immensely displeased by this speech. But he respects Sophie, in some unallottable way, so he keeps mum.
"You'll stay a coward for some time. You cannot change all at once. Even I, with this frumpy appearance - I'm not so different, am I?"
It's only Howl who knows. The curse, he cannot speak. The subject, he knows all too well.