a rectangle, shifted somewhat

It was hard, at first, to find a real confidante. Milton is way too young (even though he's a full nine years older than she is, and yes, she knows that, but the point still stands, obviously), and Addam's more a father (and a bad one...) than he is a friend.

Jin seems to hate her for, like, no reason, and Lora's boring because she's way too obsessed with Jin (it seems to be mutual, even if it's not reciprocal), and Haze is, like, baby (and also obsessed with Lora). Also Mikhail. Yet another baby. Gross. At least he and Milton are happy together. Or whatever.

Brighid's a...I won't say that bad word, but you know the one I mean. Aegaeon is even more boring than Lora, as if that were even possible (!), and Hugo...too weird to try to be friends with the emperor. Even if he does want to go unhinged sometimes, he definitely won't do it often enough. And he's got responsibilities and junk.

Mythra doesn't just want someone who will tolerate her, who will let her energy, nervous or directed, bounce off of them because they're willing to half-comfortably humor her. Everybody's always either afraid of or straight-up disapproving of the Aegis. Isn't there anybody who will just let her be herself?

And then Minoth shows up. Completely unapologetic, flashy without intending to show off the way Brighid did with her stupid stupid stupid circle of flames or Jin did with his stupid stupid stupid ice powers, saving all their asses but laughing at Addam when he tries to act all grateful. My kinda guy, Mythra thinks. My kinda guy.

He said he can use his full strength anywhere, without his Driver, and that's like her...but Mythra also knows that Minoth is most definitely weaker than every other one of them there. And she, meanwhile, is the strongest, beyond anything Jin the so-called Paragon or Brighid the so-called Jewel can muster up. Of course she is.

Isn't that weird? Though it isn't so easy to quantify, to rectify, to reconcile whatever Aegaeon's deal is, each team has a fairly obvious and titled primary. The Paragon, the Jewel, and the Aegis. Then, each team has a secondary. The healer, the protector, and the...cowboy?

He doesn't fit in anywhere, not least with their group helmed in a twenty-something triad by the mercenary (soon enough, the knight!), the emperor, and the prince. Mythra should want a more upright and singular partner, shouldn't she? Someone who's more a lancer than an assassin, more a hero than an underling.

Someone who's more like her. Right?

So, she asks him about it. Feeling dreadfully unlike herself, Mythra beckons Minoth over to sit next to her around the campfire, and instead of clamping her legs together with her hand jammed between her thighs for security like usual, she tries to sit like him, legs splayed and open to the conversation. Well, she only makes it so long until Brighid sends her a red-hot-poker of a glare, and crossed go the ankles, palms hugging kneecaps. So much for that, huh?

But Minoth sits, obligingly. He doesn't sit up straight because he's too tall for that, for one thing, but also because he leans in, again open, again engaged. He's trying so hard, yet so effortlessly, to be part of the group, but Mythra doesn't want him to be part of the group, really. She wants him to pay attention to her, because she's the one who offered him this seat.

Look at me, so adult! Being polite, and hosting. You'd never think we'd need to do that, out here in the wilds, but I did! No one even asked me to! Brighid never even bothers to do that much. So there.

(Still, Mythra keeps her legs closed.)

"So...what's it like?"

"Huh?" Minoth turns towards her (leans slightly back, really), and there's still something wary, almost feral, in his eyes, but the firelight shines a warmth into them that his guardedness doesn't reject. The blue cast over red-orangey gold is really, really nice to look at, and it takes Mythra a bit to tear her own eyes away and focus on his response.

Oh. Not much of a response. Gosh, what a crappy opener, huh, Mythra? That could mean anything. But since it's him, and he's clever, now he knows that you only think of him as representing that one thing. That it should be so obvious. So singular. But he doesn't...ugh. Better get on with it, anyway. "Being a...not needing your Driver."

"Oh, well." He makes an appraising face. "In one sense, it's freeing. In another sense, it's incredibly sad. Just one more thing that reinforces the fact that I'm not really a Blade, anymore." His reply came quickly, but not too quickly. He'd definitely thought about this before, but he wasn't parroting off rehearsed rhetoric. He was answering her question, genuinely. Nice.

(I should do that more often, shouldn't I? Instead of going on about how Drivers and Blades are one in body in soul. Especially since I...don't really believe that.)

But we're not through yet. Focus. Mythra tilts her head, and feels in her Core that the angle is way more coy than it ever should have been. "You don't think of yourself as a Blade?"

Minoth shrugs, but with only one shoulder. "Not really. I mean, do I seem very Blade-like to you?"

Mythra considers this, takes the opportunity - more the invitation - to look him over. His frame is overwhelmingly stereotypically masculine, with broad shoulders that shade weirdly far in to his hips. Malos, in the glances she's seen, doesn't actually look like that. Malos's hips are...disconcertingly wide. But anyway. Ugh.

Minoth. Weird name, but not any weirder than Mythra, she supposes. Torso long, but legs longer, and upper arms and forearms alike properly bulky - he actually looks strong. He doesn't look like his strength comes from the ether, even if part of the bulk is his armor.

He looks dangerous, in a sense, like the polite way he sits is purposefully belying all possible power he could hold, but it's not in the way that Jin looks dangerous, silent but deadly. It's not in the way that Aegaeon looks powerful, or Haze looks deceptively weak. It's not in the way that Brighid has that whole femme fatale thing going on, or that Mythra herself has the whole goddess aesthetic.

He just looks kinda human, doesn't he? If not for the ether lines tracing over his abdomen (those on his thighs lie dormant and weak, and the apparatus on his back is largely out-of-sight out-of-mind), she would have just thought he was a normal human in really eclectic armor. Besides the one scar, which is probably more apparent than he'd ever like it to be, the whole of his face (the only skin on him she can see) looks like it's had a texture of wear applied to it.

Father above, he looks tired. But the more Mythra studies him, processes all the vertices and edges that make up the geometry of his face, slips and dips her eyes around the curves and the cuts, mentally runs her fingers through his sideburns and back behind his ears, the more she thinks that it's a nice kind of tired.

Dangerous, and tired. He's a Blade? He's human. He's a Flesh Eater. He's Minoth. And he looks like he gives really, really good hugs.

Oh, right. The question. The conversation. Her beloved good manners. Get it together, Mythra! "I guess not," she concedes at last. She wonders, should I tell him what I just observed? Probably, he'd appreciate it - the honesty, and the conclusions I drew. Not in a scientific way, which is definitely what I was doing, but in his whole writing way.

She'd been more than a little annoyed when, that first day, Minoth had accused her of being privy to all of Malos's deepest and shallowest motivations, just because they were both Aegises. That'd be like...like...like asking Addam why he didn't like sour foods the same way Zettar did, because they were both Tornans? Nah. So maybe Minoth had been right.

Of course, she didn't know what Malos thought, truly, but she was smart enough to try and form a hypothesis. And Minoth probably made a lot of hypotheses. He probably thought about things a lot. He was probably a much better influence than Addam, who never thought about anything at all, except trying (and failing) to keep her "in line". Ugh.

Mythra's lucky her Core can process all these thoughts so fast, because if she'd waited any longer her befuddled expression probably would have thrown Minoth, like, way off. And she needs him on track. Focused. Addam's awful at staying focused.

"But it doesn't matter what you look like," Mythra hurriedly amends. "I know you'd never bow to Addam, and call him Master, like the others do, but neither would I. And I'm, like, the Bladiest Blade there is, right? So it's all cool."

Minoth chuckles. Awesome! Point for Mythra. Get him to feel better about himself because he can relate to you. Lighten up the conversation - see, I can talk about deep topics without being insensitive! I'm sensitive! I care about things!

I...care about things? People? Blades? Things?

"I don't exactly know if I'm trying to follow your example, Mythra."

Oh. Mythra squeezes her legs tighter against each other. "Yeah, I guess I get that. But aren't we kinda similar, still?" The hope in her voice...she wishes she could phase it out of existence with a pinpoint shot from Siren. It's disgustingly childish. Minoth is cool! Why can't I be cool?

"Sure," Minoth pronounces with finality. "I think we'll work together just fine." He doesn't seem to be suspending any hope at all, just confidence. Maybe it's the same thing, after enough time has gone by. Mythra nods earnestly, and feels that the axis point is her nose, instead of the back of her neck.

Then the finality caps itself off. "I'll catch you later, alright, Mythra?" He seems like he's about to pat her knee in encouragement, but then he hesitates, and claps his hand on the space between them on the log-made-bench instead. The painfully obvious...space. Up he goes, and Mythra is left alone. Again.

She watches as Addam leans back in his seat at Minoth's address, and as Minoth's hand lands on his shoulder and...squeezes? And Addam's opposite hand goes on top? And they both laugh? Like, a lot?

Oh. Oh. Ohhhhhh.

Then Minoth points at her and says something she can't make out, and she waves back, and her hand feels really, really tiny as she does it, and Addam grins at her. The fire does the same thing to his eyes that it did to Minoth's. And Mythra wonders, does it do the same thing to mine? To me?

Nervously, awkwardly, as if she's forgotten the signals her brain, her Core, whatever, should send to her muscle groups, she extricates herself from the inside of the seating ring, and shuffles over.

Before Minoth can say anything, her index finger is pointing all her stray traces of confidence up into his face. Gosh, it's so far up. How does he breathe up there? "I don't care if he called dibs on you first. I still want us to be friends."

And Minoth laughs, and it's so big and warm and loud, and Mythra knows right then that he's laughing with her, not at her. Nobody's ever done that before. Even the way Addam chuckles along is different.

"Say no more. So let it be written, so let it be done." Goofball. Mythra throws her arms around his middle, under the jacket, and when she feels Minoth's right arm cross around behind her back to join his left, the points tick up so far the scoreboard breaks. They can be friends without their Driver. I mean, yeah, he can be there too, as a treat. But still.

And the hug is, somehow, even better than she'd thought. (And so is every one after that.)