don't you know it takes fewer muscles to tell the truth?
She could move her hand to her face to wipe away the blood. She could. She could try to pretend that she was just as human as the rest of them, fighting in this stupid, stupid war.
Yeah. Really stupid. Because she didn't even know whose blood it was. It couldn't be Milton's, because Mikhail hadn't let her touch him.
Had held his dead friend's corpse away from her searching, wavering, wobbling hands like she was a dirty, repugnant thing, volatile and vile and exactly the same as Malos. Had communicated the most meaningful thing he'd ever had to her or to anyone: you are a monster, and I don't trust you anymore. I probably never did.
As any rational person would. Because she was from the same stock, and all. Because they'd done it together, and Addam had always been right.
As if. As if that dumbass would ever have been right about anything. It had to be his fault too. It had to.
But it wasn't. Not as far as she could convince herself, anyway. No, she couldn't blame this on anyone else.
So maybe the crimson staining her face and her sleeves was borne of all the other citizens of Torna - the ones who'd actually lived there, not the ones who'd been so gaily absconded by disaster hailing from elsewhere - who were half dead and half alive, a paradoxical coffin boxing up every single person. Not that they'd been afforded them.
It could also be Torna's blood, of course. The great dragon hadn't stopped writhing since the first time she'd struck it with her Siren.
If Torna could even bleed, that is. And wasn't it more like her, anyway? It had once been a Blade. Now it was something greater. Maybe she was more of the opposite.
But no matter. She'd mourned so much more thoroughly for Ophion's fall than for Torna's. Cybernetic or not, she still should have the stones to cry about seeing Milton stone dead on the dirty deck.
No, she didn't deserve to. But she could have at least tried to seem repentant.
Wasn't even her who'd made the promise, anyway. Jin was the one who had agreed to bring Addam back. The unlucky idiot was still alive. There was just nowhere to bring him back to, now.
But if she was a good person, she'd take responsibility for that swear. She'd own up to the fact that if a Driver and Blade really were one in body and soul, she didn't even have to tell Milton squat to make it her one job.
Beyond destroying Malos, that was always supposed to be the priority. Addam, and everybody else around him. Because Addam, bless his body and curse his soul, always cared.
What if the great tail came thrashing in to smite her in retribution, one last act as it sank? What if its scales tore into the crystal mounted on her chest and sliced it out, rock and rabble meeting bone and flesh?
What if she were tried for this on the natural stage of her father's creations, instead of just in the petty courts of human fools?
Liar, it would say. Imbecile and villain, the epithets would come - if, that is, it could talk.
Would've been better. If something, anything, gave comeuppance for what she did. But she still couldn't claim that, because if it did, it'd knock out the entire rest of the evacuation ship, too. It'd hurt everyone around her, just because of something she'd done.
Smile, Aegis. Smile pretty and tell everyone you're a goddess. Stop frowning and shutting yourself up inside. You can join in, you know.
So yeah, she could make herself anew, stand up straighter and try to keep functioning even though she knew so strongly that the will was simply not there. She could. But who knew what would happen if she did that? Who knew what else could go wrong?
Your actions have consequences, Mythra. Don't you know that?