on the steps of the palace (don't let me in)

He's a very smart prince
He's a prince who prepares
But then what if he knew who you were
When you know that you're not what he thinks that he wants?

Coarse, Addam calls them. Mythra's shoulder turns to sand.

(Pyra's shoulders, unbowed, brace up straighter.)

Clumsy, Brighid calls them. Mythra's heels crumble; they stumble without purpose, without refinement of step or gait, under the weight of their heavier, heavier, heavier arms.

(Pyra bounces on her own heels, strong and supple. She is ready, but she's still not ready yet. Mythra is not ready for her.)

Rare, Jin calls them. Mythra feels so, so alone, and Pyra knows that she cannot help them without making things a thousand times worse.

From the same stock as Malos, does the Aegis feel that they can handle the situation all on their own?

If Mythra could talk to Pyra, could see how she walked and wandered in the dreamspace, they might have said, no, Pyra, you can't help. I don't even know half what, who, you are. I've barely even learned your name. And they don't even like me, so why would I...no. Not you.

But Mythra cannot communicate with Pyra. Much as she would like to be, Pyra herself is not ready for that yet. So they stew, together yet disparate, and every day Pyra becomes a little clearer. A little more of her own.

And yet...no, Mythra doesn't exactly plan to handle it all alone. But not with these allies, either. "Allies" don't work against you if working against you is really the same as working against themselves. If that's what they really believe so much as they like to put on.

Addam's obnoxious bluster is the coarse thing, and it's Brighid's own heels that slam Mythra down to the ground and put a pincer to their throat. Jin knows he is rare, in only the most exemplary way that a frosted touchstone can be. He thinks himself better than the Aegis, all in all. Both of them.

(And would he think that of all three? Is it so intrinsic? Or is there a chance for change? Will there ever be?)

At times, real cooperation seems so close, sweet and meaty and almost tantalizing upon their tongue. What if, Mythra thinks, what if it's really not for nothing? What if humans can really be as good as they all say?

Brighid doesn't...doesn't just speak of the glory of Mor Ardain because she considers herself a war machine. She has a status that she enjoys, and Hugo's company as well, and even Aegaeon's, for what little that means when the Water Blade is just as boring as Mythra would have to have expected to reconcile his secondary rank, when Hugo loves him so.

Mythra would believe it, without a moment's hesitation, that Jin treasures his own supposed pacifism because it only makes him more perfect, more admirable. It's...gah, it's infuriating, isn't it? That he should get all that accolade for choosing not to use his sword. Too bad they want Mythra both ways.

Trouble is, Mythra would also believe, and does believe, as time goes on, that he's perfectly genuine. That he's mastered his own irony as a creature made to protect its own at the cost of all others, and has moved on to wanting to defy that entirely. And after all, Jin is an Ice Blade. Of course he tells the truth.

So you can be deadly, and still sit so pretty with the family at home. So you can have your power and eat your cake too.

So you can be bonded with a powerful Blade, and not tremble to think that they'll level your continent if you so much as look at them funny.

Addam looks, and looks, and looks. Why won't he stop? Doesn't he hate it? How can he stand to do it?

They cut down Beatific Ophelia in a shower of golden light. Mythra grows horns, antlers, grotesque wings too long to be clipped from the sides of their temples, and their roots tangle asunder inside the roof of their cranial cavity.

They trounce Sentinel Carpathia, and Mythra feels no richer from the coin that explodes from inside. Instead, scales shoot from their hips and their fingertips, rough-shod horny things that break the confident stances of any who come near.

On come Gibson, Tlaloc, Anise, each with further ornamentation that clads Mythra up in a prison of poisonous pills that no one else would want to, but more importantly that no one else should ever have to, swallow.

Swallow it. Eat your words. Say you were wrong, Mythra. Say that they're not bullies. Say that they're right, that you've got blinders on and you've had them strapped to your eye sockets from the very day you awoke. Let them have seen the distress signals you broadcast from your diadem.

Let your own truth have been laid bare, the way Malos thought it would bring justice to Torna. You're not made to know things. You're only here because the only way humans know to fight destruction is with more of the same.

They should be happy that Milton is dead. They should be happy that they have fulfilled their purpose. But that's not what Mythra wants, all in all. Mythra just wants to be alive.

Well, wanted. But it's too late for that now. Not that it ever mattered what Mythra wanted. No one ever asks the monsters if they want to be killed. And what is Mythra but a smaller, daintier, deadlier golden monster?

Addam's hands grip their shoulders. Those joints are not, in fact, made of sand, nor laser-refined glass either. And it is that...that...that pitch-stained reality, that thing that is the most visceral Mythra has ever felt, save the resonation itself, that is the final straw.

How can you touch me? How can you not dare nor deign but even find the capability to touch me, among all my artifices and appendages, so wretched as I am?

Do you think your hands there will help now, after all this time? After I have gone so far beyond saving?

I...I don't hate you, Addam. I don't care what you do. But don't...oh, please, for the love of everything that actually is good and holy, stop touching me. Save yourself, and me, the trouble. The grief. The pain.

Those thoughts, those desires, those pieces of honesty, aren't things Mythra can coherently communicate at this point, of course. It's too late; they are almost out of time to even continue to function, and would have been even without all the manifest golden guilt helmeting their head.

The clock is striking, the bell is tolling, the heart is beating, the core is exploding, that last infinitesimal scrap of composure that they had had remaining, had been saving, whittled down from their initial allottment of not all too fucking much, is withering away with a fatal subatomic snap.

Are you ready, Pyra? At this point, you goddamn have to be. Because I- I--

Pyra rounds up the steps of the palace. The prince is graceful, supplicating. No longer is he stuck with the wayward, rebellious shoes of a Blade like Mythra.

When there's nothing to choose, there's nothing to lose. Better run along home, and avoid the collision.

You'll get there eventually, Pyra. I...I think. So just...wake me up when you know.

ty Mel for always letting me make things for you, you inspire me in every way i can name and probably some others besides. anyway i think i'm done now