Apoyatura

I'll be in on the seventeenth of the month, Minoth's letter had said. And when he said he'd be in, he meant that he'd be where he was aiming to go, and not portside or citydwelling or anything one single iota of a mile more removed from the point. Because Minoth always liked to get straight to the point.

And, too, when Minoth was arriving to somewhere, he didn't like to have his letters answered, because that meant that he wouldn't be there to receive them, and what would the point be in that, and Addam wasn't half sure his letters even got back to the proper place half the time anyway. Some open, free-flowing communication, that.

He hadn't poked inquiry about the odd choice of date, then. Well, he knew its significance well enough; it was Flora's birthday. He just hadn't thought that Minoth would care. Minoth always did as Minoth does, which is to say that he did whatever he wanted - away from Indol, he couldn't but. His independence was all he had.

Loitering out in the garrison yard on that selfsame finest morning - a brisk, not-quite-blustery thing, with all the smell of springtime and all the air of oh, Flora - afforded Addam the opportunity to catch the Flesh Eater in directly, which was what he did when he saw him stepping off a sub-regulation-size Titan transport into the harbor.

"Minoth! Fancy meeting you here, eh?" He ignored - and this won't be entirely to his credit - the shiphands offloading cargo, seeds and such for the upcoming crop season, focused entirely on his unusual guest.

To answer, Minoth came alongside Addam to walk in step, but finding the prince unmoving shifted gears to leaning back and crossing his arms. "Too early for games, my prince. By that you mean...?"

"I just never would have expected you, even with your letter. It's not like you to make such a visit."

Ah. No? "Look, Prince. I know you're married to her, and she's your best friend, and it doesn't really have anything to do with me. But I owe you...everything. So if my being here will make her happy, then I'm gonna goddamn be here. Right?"

"And you're not going to enjoy yourself at all?" Addam shot back, not half committed to what he was saying in the entirety of its effect but knowing that the contention would see itself out eventually; in other words, Minoth loved to argue, but he'd never admit to as much.

"I didn't say that. I'm gonna love every minute of it. But she doesn't need to know that."

"Minoth." Oh, he didn't make any sense. Maybe there was a strange sort of internal logic to it, but given how self-possessed he consistently showed himself to be, it was anybody's guess how the damned thing really worked.

"Huh?"

"I believe she specifically does."

If Minoth meant to prepare a snappy answer to that, he didn't have time to give it, because it was time for Milton to appear, scrambling haplessly down the manor steps with bolo tie dangling all askew.

"Master Addam!! You didn't tell me you had a trip today!"

"Milton! No, I'm not going anywhere - see, Minoth's here to visit. What do you make of that?"

Between you and me, of course, we know that Milton hasn't been purported to hold our fair favorite Flesh Eater in any manner of high esteem, but one might like to posit that eventually the two would become better acquainted. Here and now: "O-oh. Ah, hello, Master Minoth," Milton said with a gulp in his throat and a half-shuffle, half-bow in his posture.

"Milton," Minoth returned, quirking a jagged eyebrow. "You look well." And oh, Addam thought, must they fight?

To change the subject, and to close their prior conversation...

"You could come to visit at any other time of the year, you know. You could just...stay with us."

"I could," Minoth allowed, still trading vaguely disinterested eye contact with Milton, who had crossed his arms in reciprocation and was impatiently tapping the pointed toe of a boot. He'd come outside with the promise of an adventure with Master Addam on his mind, and all he'd gotten in actuality was...Minoth.

(A little unappreciative, don't you think? I, personally, would be perfectly thrilled to wake up in the morning and find such a unique person waiting outside the front door, unwilling to explain his presence but determined to show up all the same.)

(And certainly Addam agreed with that.) "So why don't you?" So why on Alrest are you so damned contrarian?

"Addam..."

"That's my name."

So Minoth sighed, dropped his arms, and cocked his head to the side, lifting a hand to scratch at the corner of his jaw. Any other man would have looked a sight more risible, with that trademark stray lock of hair dangling to and fro, but he made it work - are any of us surprised in the least?

"Look, you could just order me to stay here or you'd report me as a Blade without a Driver, right? You could do a lot of things because you have a lot more power than I do. But you don't. So why don't you?"

"Because I love you," Addam answered without a moment of the hesitation he really ought to have had, by rights.

Of course he would. Of course he did. And of course Minoth pretended to be impervious thereto. "Oh, you sap. Don't think you're gonna catch me saying it back."

But enough about them - it's not their day, is it? No, we're here for Flora. And Flora is - was, rather...

Back in the main hallway of the manor's first floor, the alternate steps of boots and shoes, two matched in size and one pair a little smaller, were the only sounds to be heard. Bustle though the staff could, at half-before the northwest quadrant of the clock they hardly ever did, which just left Addam and Flora and Milton and...assorted guests stumbling about in a place far bigger than they would ever need, save for the advent of an extended family about three or four times the size in the years to come.

But, that's a tale for another time. We return (once again, because I can only hope that you enjoy these adumbrational tangents half as much as I do) to the quest for the kitchen, which was the most logical place a bird like Flora would flit to at this morning hour. Addam and Milton went in first, leaving Minoth to linger awkwardly in the hallway - where do you hide such a statuesque cowboy? Certainly not in plain sight, but then they didn't exactly have a choice.

"Oh, Addam, there you are." She wrinkled her nose up at him as she locked the clasp on her necklace behind her neck and tapped her heels on the floor to make sure her boots were truly securely on. Oh, the silly little lady...she's ineffable, isn't she? "You got up so early, I didn't even get my birthday kiss!"

"Just one?" Milton's posture just then was lazy, elbows in the air and arms behind his head just as we might always imagine him - not very appropriate for indoors conversation, but we'll allow it. "How 'bout you try t--"

We'll all grant that Addam Origo is one of the best fathers to stand in recent memory, if not by execution then certainly by intention, right? We'll all agree that he is and was as loving as he could possibly be, at every possible moment, and whatever he lacked in understanding he at least attempted to make for in the earnest yen for it. So then, we'll all excuse him for elbowing Milton in the side, forgetting the sheer effectiveness of the points on his couter, and hastily clearing his throat.

"Well, there's time, isn't there, Flora? We've got the whole day ahead of us, after all."

It was only the second year of their being there, after all, so she was only just turning an elegant twenty-two, and it was moments like this that made her really seem her age, instead of someone half a decade or more older, the mistress of a dour old estate growing Gromrice and Lucky Lettuce and Deviled Onions out in the middle of, relatively, nowhere.

Flora considered this, pursed her lips from side to side, and generally did everything innocent to connote her harmless disapproval. "Silly of you to say. There's work to be done today, and that doesn't change just because I happened to be born on a similar day and date some twenty-odd years ago."

At last, finding himself with a suitable cue, Minoth stepped around the far side of the doorway into the kitchen, and challenged: "No?"

The reactions were threefold: Addam bit his lip to keep from laughing, Milton rolled his eyes, and Flora near about jumped a foot and a half in the air - for her height, of course, that would be saying something. "Minoth?! Architect, I nearly had a heart attack - what are you doing here?"

"Beats me...loitering?"

And of course, before Flora herself could respond, Addam had grasped her hand (whether or not he caught the spare one of Minoth's with the other is a secret only you can imagine the exact truth of), Minoth had interlaced his fingers with hers, gloved palm cupped over her knuckles, and they'd planted twin kisses on those adorable, so smilingly freckled cheeks.

Really, it's just as I had said - straight to the point, right? Even our wayward prince could be marshalled into such forthright action. But I also think we all know that even though he'd done the job he'd flown in for, he wasn't planning on leaving anytime soon.

"Sillies, you're blushing! I should have thought that was my job."

"Well, I..." Addam offered feebly, left hand passing behind his head and flush only redoubling in depth of color. Milton crossed his arms, victorious (as if he hadn't been just so embarrassed to be there only a moment before), and Minoth, of course, was there with the satisfying closer:

"Sure we are - it's Flora day, right? So we're all pink."