can you hear me? can you see?
Minoth left the pillared bounds of Indol three times. Only three times, before he left for good.
The first time, he went to Uraya. It seemed neutral enough, and less industrial than Mor Ardain. So he went, and basked in the anti-sterile glow of the saffronia trees, the liquid vibrancy of the ether-soaked air. Here was life. Here was culture. Here was love.
And there was Addam. "Fancy meeting you here, Minoth!" was all he said.
Now, usually a hook like that came inflected with a question. Not so fancy, is it, until I tell you. Not so fancy until you can make an inspection tour of gossip roundabout and over my tragedy. Not so fancy until you're able to edge away the danger that I bring. Because I'm not normal.
Minoth wasn't normal, and neither was Addam, because Addam wasn't teasing demands of explication. Addam quite literally thought it was a fine and happy coincidence, that he'd finally met his old friend away from the goreless sanctum. And, well...fair enough.
He didn't...didn't ask Addam why he was there, either. Did he even care? Princes did as princeling does, and someone who wasn't even quite up to the par of emissary work, as was contrasted with Minoth's hopeful play towards that mercenary, was free to go where he liked.
Was free to go where he liked. Minoth wasn't free. He'd just come from Coeia, and felt that awful, awful tether that connected him to Amalthus as his Driver stood on the barren cliff and denounced the entirety of their world as a lower domain, as a beyond-all-hope bland-fire hell.
Arguing with Amalthus always granted the both of them a mutual, unspoken cool-down period in which neither wanted to see nor hear of the other. Now, there was a scale to it, but when the cards were laid, Amalthus would cease his demands. For a time.
So Minoth took that time, and made it time away. Like a vacation from an insufferable boss - ha! Would that that was all that Amalthus was.
The second time, he went to Gormott. The argument of the moment was, to wit, whether or not Amalthus should even awaken the Blades he'd brought down from the World Tree. Minoth knew, oh how he knew, that leaving that task to his Driver, the man who'd made an experiment out of his first-born Blade without a second thought, purely in the service of impure power, would only lead to greater and truer hells being unleashed on this their groundless earth.
Really, Minoth had just wanted to touch some goddamn grass, after that. Uraya was beautiful, but some of the beauty was almost a trick of the tail. The fauna, and even some of the flora, was still vicious there. The people were still jaded. It wasn't as if anywhere in Alrest contained those truly innocent and believing that fact of all their brethren, but the Gormotti came close.
So Minoth took a walk. A long, long walk, from tailbone to necknape of the Gormott Titan, over one, two, three weeks? He stopped for some hours, every now and then, to capture the surrounding landscape in words. Not flowery language and neologisms that commuted context, no, but the simplest adjectives possible. The grass is green. The air is fresh. The Fliers are buzzing and I am alive.
I am alive. I lie in the fields and watch the Lazure Swallowtails float by, watch the Skeeters make the Melosion Honey, watch the Crustips ply their most bewitching dance. Amalthus's influence doesn't matter. Amalthus's wants, needs, fears, issues...they don't matter. Because I am here, and I am alive.
Am I? Why am I? Do I really want to be?
Does that Blade want to be? Who am I to decide?
There are so many humans in this world, so many Drivers. Surely Amalthus can't be the worst of them. Surely it's only me who's at fault. I, lying here in this green green grass. I am the dark thing here. I am the unlovable, the worthless, the mistake.
The sun beat down. Minoth didn't beat back.
If Amalthus wants to awaken a Blade, why shouldn't he? That Blade won't be me. And so that Blade will be better. That Blade won't be a failure. That Blade won't let him get to them. That Blade will have better hobbies, better hopes, better dreams.
That Blade will be better than I. And there will be nothing I can do for them. For there is nothing that this world can do for me.
Despite the urge to lie continually supine in the grass for hours, days, weeks on end more, let the earth and the Titan take him like he deserved, or perhaps like he didn't, Minoth knew he couldn't bear to continue his motive blighting of the beautiful, picturesque landscape. So, he picked himself up and completed the trek in to Torigoth. Wasn't even a hamlet, the puny plateau, but it was enough of a rest stop that he didn't feel altogether out of place stopping there.
And who, who, who should he find there? He should find Addam. Is that you, o noblest Architect of our fates? Are you saying that I should find Addam? Because if so, I'd like to know why. I'd like to understand.
Even just five hours earlier, Minoth had given up understanding any and every thing that this world, graciously and gracefully architected or not, could ever hope or dream, itself, to offer. But laid into hand with Torna's uncrowned bastard prince, Minoth found himself with questions. Questions, questions, questions.
Questions like, what does this mean? Does it mean anything? And will I be able to bring that climax off as properly as could ever be hoped?
Minoth acted opposite Addam, in their silly platonic pantomime. "My prince!" he greeted with false, summoned-up cheer as the wayward royal ambled closer through the town gate, step straight and proud. "What brings you to yon faire Gormott?"
Arms spread wide, invitation. How can you invite him to a locale that's not yours, a place where you don't belong? The answer is simple, if you're willing to stretch around disbelief's thickest suspension. An iterant knows many mapped-out masters. I don't belong anywhere, so everywhere is where I belong. Bullshit. Bull-shit! Whatever. The scene goes on.
"Minoth!" came the hearty rejoinder. "Good to see you! There was a flood up on Melnath's Shoulder some few weeks ago, and I'm just checking on the site - after stopping for food first, of course. Have you eaten?"
Such a simple question, and yet Minoth could only find it in himself to answer with an awkward half-shrug. "No," he said, but the vowel went up instead of down. What is wrong with you, o orator? Can't you get it right?
But Addam didn't notice. "Ah, well that's fine then! Have you been on Gormott long? Do you know of any particular haunts?" He strolled forward as the conversation tumbled forth, and gathered Minoth in to his side with an easy arm laid about his shoulder, which Minoth shrugged again.
"Can't say that I do, Addam. I've been out in the wilderness, mostly."
Addam stopped, tsked, and framed them across from each other once more. "I hope you haven't been working, all this time."
"Ugh...no, I haven't," Minoth groaned, scrubbing the heel of his hand over the scar. "I should have been, though. I'll run out of food money, at this rate."
Addam frowned in kind, but it was without any real consternation. "Well, that's just silly. You know I'd never let that happen - here, how much do you need?"
He was really pulling out his wallet, the idiot. And Minoth was figuring up the answer to his question, the fool. Why didn't he resist? At all? Either of them?
Nevertheless. "Ahh...1000G should cut it? I suppose."
"Right," Addam murmured as he rummaged around in the pile of change in his palm with a single index finger, "so that's one, two, three, four...and a fifth, for good measure." For good measure? If I asked for 1000, then why is a fifth 200G coin "good measure"?
"Addam..." Because they were not, in fact, 200G coins, but those of the 500-unum denomination.
"What?" Addam looked up, face painted plain mild obligement. "Did you want more? You shouldn't be afraid to ask."
"I...no, I just..." As he trailed off the useless statement, Minoth found himself reaching for the collection of coins, and letting Addam's hand squeeze around his as he took them. "Thank you."
"Why, of course. After all, what else - no, what better could old friends be for?"
What better? Worlds of things better than just engendering the soulless cycle of upset capitalism through class-bending bullshit. Worlds.
But, worlds inward and outward, spatial and temporal, gratifying and dissatisfying both and neither, that was when Minoth began to realize that leaving Indol was and would always be synonymous with finding Addam. Leaving that indubitable, inescapable, yet so blithely, maddeningly unassuming hellhole would always mean going home.
The third time, he went straight to Torna. Malos, the erstwhile occupant of the violet Core, had been awakened, and already set directly in to carrying out Amalthus's whims and wills of nihilist destruction. Violet, to violent. Violence, in violet. If he could be so blunt, so immediate, well, so could Minoth. No more aimless wandering needed for you, cowboy. You know where you belong.
Do you? Don't you? Do you?
So maybe he didn't travel with that much of a pinpoint. He knew Addam was living in Aletta by now, and to step right off the Titan ship into the courtyard of the garrison seemed...a little too pat. A little too cliché. A little too presumptuous, really.
He considered going through Lasaria as well, edging around from the nature preserve through to Hyber (maps he'd studied, with Amalthus, oh, map after map, because he hadn't been able to take in much of anything material while actually visiting other Titans with his so detested Driver), but there again the port was too singular.
Minoth's ultimate choice was Auresco, where he and his poncho blended in just well enough among the hustle and bustle to avoid any hackles-raised suspicion. So many people, so much purpose, so much vigor, so much righteousness. Real righteousness, real virtues, real values. The supposed equal treatment of Blades and humans could only be so true, but Minoth felt it all the same as he watched bearers of chest-mounted Cores of all shapes and dispositions converse with shopkeepers, children, old lady gossips alike.
No one in Indol ever talked to Blades like that. No one in Indol ever thought about Blades like that. It didn't help that he and Malos were the precious few non-common specimens, and each of them grim and foreboding in their portent, but what was the difference between a gruff man and a gruff Blade? Shouldn't be one, right?
But you're not here for a gruff man, are you, Minoth? Not even here for sightseeing to be derived into storytelling. On into Dannagh, you'll go, and be alone again. That's alright, isn't it? Take your peace, and be damned.
Peln Springland was peaceful, indeed, the Gogols gathered around in spirit of sunning merely courteous of the pond's own tranquility. The view to Turqos only gave more of the same serenity - Minoth was beyond thankful that he'd never had to actually engage in an argument with Amalthus in such a pretty place. To keep things wholly divested, diverged, was...a small favor, at least.
Here a small favor, there a large one. The peace ceased, signaled in its throes by the oversized, overbearing skittering of Antol pincers, and Minoth's hands went to his holsters. What luck, eh? Some poor sap had gotten himself into a tussle, and for once Minoth could actually do something about it. Could actually stop the slow, painful letting go, the torturous severing, of life.
He could dream, after all. Could dream that Malos's cold, calculated rampages were only incremental in the grand scheme of things, could pretend that one village burned, atrocious as it was, was only one village burned. Was only...how many lives? Architect, how many individual, business-minding, baby-tending, innocent lives?
Putting together an ensemble cast doesn't require the director's attention. Other production staff members can run the auditions, and it's not important to know who specifically is singing in the background ballad. You wouldn't notice if one of them went missing, whether they ended up out sick or caught in a mauling accident - a Malos accident, more like. Possibly (probably), no one ever would.
Pretty empty thing, isn't it? As he latched and locked his knives into guns, Minoth swore he'd see out his petty, pocketed analogy every damn time, just to spite his uncaring compatriots. I'll care. You might not think that I'm able to, you might not think that it's right to, but I'll care. I'll direct better than you ever could. I'll count, and I'll care.
It took a swift rounding up onto the Golden Twin Mesa, around from the far side, to gain access to the nest entrance, but once he'd made mount, it suddenly became shockingly apparent to Minoth what the truth of the situation was: Addam Origo, the man he so often met in the most mundane of circumstances, was down there duking it out with a veritable queen of the arachnids, and getting his ass quite handily handed to him.
Now, if Minoth were to follow the example of Malos's teamwork with Amalthus, the way they decided on who to rupture, who to rapture, and who to save, he would have said to himself, clearly Addam isn't worth my effort in jumping down in there and saving him, because he's only human and he's not my Driver, and this is just the passage of fate on down to the end of the line, for him.
But Minoth wasn't going to follow that example. Of course he wasn't. He'd just stated so emphatically to himself, and to you, me, us, that he wasn't going to. So, in you go, Minoth. Don't let the sinkhole hit you on the way out!
The cavern, once broached and breached, revealed itself to be packed with both the aforepredicted queen and a clutter of henchmen, as well as one hapless Sir Origo. Each swing of his greatsword was more haphazard than the last, and it appeared Minoth had leapt in at just the final opportune moment, before Addam truly fell prey.
Minoth opened with bullet fire as he slipped over and around the surprisingly hardy web stretched across the skyward-facing mouth of the cavern, succeeding in catching the largest of the beasts off guard and pushing back her advances. His aim was perfect and his tricks were well-sleeved; in general, it wasn't as if this foe was anything so titanic.
But Addam was here, and Addam was in danger. So that made it a whole new genre of feat.
Addam certainly thought so, as his neck whipped around to follow the source of the bullets back to a sight of stature that made him grin full out, even through his exhaustion. "Minoth!"
"No time for emotional reunions, Prince," Minoth snapped back, dropping down to Addam's side and readying his knives. "You been here long?"
"Not very--" Back in surged the queen, and so the conversation ceased. With teamwork came a colossal easing of the effort Addam needed to apply even just to stay on his feet, and Minoth couldn't remember ever feeling half this synergetic with Amalthus at his side. At his side? At his back, more like. Behind his back. Behind his back while Minoth set to stabbing.
Ugh. Point and shoot, Minoth. Block the blows, protect Addam the best you can, and just get out of here. Just get the hell out of here.
By and by, they were able to level off a good five of the eight spindly legs, in between bumping off the smaller Antols, and leave the tyrant helpless for the final blows. Soon enough, she crumbled to dust and chiron. Away went the weapons, and only then did Minoth see how truly shaken Addam looked.
So now, on to exposition. "Addam, what the hell are you doing out here?"
"Haah..." Addam waved a hand in front of his forehead to connote...something, but whatever it was, it wasn't clear. 's fine, Prince, catch your breath. Architect knows you let me do it often enough, and let him bless you for it.
Bless you, and damn you. Damn you for taking me in - not to your house, just yet, but to your heart. Damn it all.
When Addam had finished leaning on Minoth's arm to shore up his composure, he waved the telltale hand again, and straightened up. "The villagers from Hyber had been complaining about an overrun of Antols here under the Breaksand. And, well, I thought I could, I should, do more than just sit on my ass in Aletta, and went out to cull the numbers firsthand. That, ah, didn't work out too well, did it?"
"I mean..." Minoth shrugged. "They're dead now, aren't they?" Christ. That sounded like something Malos would say. Not cockily, no, just deadpan and matter-of-fact. Does it matter? Does it matter, that fact? The carnage is over. They're dead now. Executed, I have - the instructions, and the lives.
"Aha, right you are, my friend!" Addam, ever oblivious to any and all moods, exclaimed, clapping a hand onto the golden outer ridge of Minoth's jacket's shoulder. "And I find myself very much not dead, which is quite a blessing." So bless you, and all.
"So, are you...gonna go back to sitting on your ass in Aletta, now?" Oh, how Minoth hated the way his cadence ticked up hopefulness. It wasn't as if sitting on his own chapless ass in the desert, solitary, would do absolutely anyone absolutely any good. It recalled Gormott's repose, didn't it? And that...that hadn't been fun, to put it lightly.
"Indeed. And won't you come with me? Adele has been waiting for, oh, years now, for you to come home."
Years? Addam, I've only known you for years. And your wife has been waiting for me? What? "Did she call it that?"
"Call what what?" Addam returned absently. They'd started moving towards the vine wall that offered passage out of the spiders' den, and Minoth fell silent until he'd succesfully completed his hoisting of the both of them back onto terra not-so-firma. Mission accomplished, and all that. And all.
"You're saying Adele thinks that my home is at Aletta? Architect's sake, Addam, I've never even been!" (That last part...he'd been unsure about whether or not to say it out loud.)
What did it mean, to have a home? If Indol was any sort of home, it was only a home base, only a touchstone of semantics and logistics, not one of the heart or the soul. No, he didn't like it there - didn't like the armaments, or the firmaments, or the ornaments. It wasn't his kind of kitsch. But it was where he belonged...wasn't it?
Addam made an appraising, considering face, one that showed that he'd avoided launching into a boisterous proclamation of the obvious truth, and how silly it would be not to accept it. "That's rather sensible, I suppose," he ventured at last. "A little odd to be thought to feel at home when you've never even set foot on the premises."
"But you know what I've told you about her, don't you? She's very meticulous, but she's never stiff. She knows that Amalthus is a Gogol on your back just as much as I do, and perhaps even more so, if I've forgotten a point or two. Every time I mentioned that I had met you, with or without Amalthus, she made sure I knew that you'd always be welcome in her house. In our house."
Our house, like your house? Or our house like...our house. That's awfully cozy, isn't it, Addam, to invite your Blade so casually in--
Your Blade? The descriptor surfaced, maybe even resurfaced, from contemplation unconscious. Just there, when you fought...closer up and harder won than any battle Amalthus had ever made you fight for him. Your shield you gave willingly, eagerly, earnestly. And so Addam is in earnest, asking you to come home.
They kept walking, side by side, down and around the mesaed dunes, and the sand shuffled listlessly. You don't belong out here in the desert, do you, Minoth? There's a definite direction to your thoughts, factive and fictive alike, that the mirages just won't suit. You're sensible, aren't you? Just like Adele, if not just like Addam.
No words, for quite a many paces more, as Minoth considered everything, and Addam let him, and then Blade gave Driver a nudge with his elbow. Minoth grinned, and Addam grinned back. Still no words, but understanding passed between. Okay then. To home.
Minoth anticipated curious, wary looks from all the attendants at the manor - certainly, he'd been expecting them from Addam's wife as well, but apparently there was no such founded concern - yet received none. Instead, the soldiers gave shallow bows, and a young Gormotti man up on a bridge-like parapet practically waved his arm off in plein of enthusiasm.
"He's friendly," Minoth remarked dryly. "As he should be!" Addam exclaimed in response. "They're all very excited to meet you, you know."
To meet...me? Minoth poked an uncertain finger at his chest, and thus at his Core. Addam nodded, solemnly. "Indeed. Noowl up there is quite an eager, ah, apprentice of mine, and I'm sure any stray details I let slip about our friendship have passed all the way around the garrison, and been magnified at least three times in grandeur throughout their travels."
Great. So I've got a reputation. Stray details, my filigreed boot. Minoth took a deep breath, pursed his lips, but said nothing. He didn't need to. The apologia came: "Not that I begrudge you an ounce of esteem, my friend - especially after you saved me just there! Oh, you know Noowl won't ever stop talking about that one, if we let him in on it."
"So...?" Try as he might, Minoth couldn't keep the exasperation from creeping into his voice. I said I wanted to be a playwright, not a celebrity, my prince - and I swear you knew that.
With the slightest gulp of his guilt, Addam indicated acknowledgement. "Right. So we won't let him in on it. I understand completely."
Nevertheless, the man posted at the door who revealed his name to be Vez was the first example of the gushing fables in action. "Master Minoth! So exciting to finally meet you. Lord Addam tells me you're a writer, and--"
Addam's smile, suddenly, was incredibly, nigh woefully tired, and he put up a weary hand to match. "Another time, Vez. We're just meaning to get in and see Adele, at the moment. I'm sure Minoth will have plenty to chat with you about later."
And see Adele they did. After crossing through the parlor into a main corridor, Addam called out, "Adele, darling, are you in there? I've brought someone to see you." Oh, so we like surprises, do we? Glad to know that I'm so piquant.
In due time, the fair Lady Origo emerged from around a corner at the back of the hall, clad in a slightly finer variant of the traditional Tornan dress Minoth had seen as he passed out of the capital, and immediately made for Minoth. She didn't stop walking, in fact, until she was directly in front of him, and reached up to offer her embrace. Rude not to accept, Minoth supposed, but that didn't make it any less awkward.
"It's, ah...nice to meet you, ma'am," Minoth said lamely once Adele had released him and stood back to look him over.
The very missus scoffed, casting an amused look at her husband. "I was afraid you'd say that. I may be a princess by marriage, but I won't be having any of that unnecessary formality here in the house. Just call me Adele, please."
Just Adele. Got it. Of course. Well...Minoth decided he'd hazard a joke. "I can tell this one'll be trouble already," he murmured, in a pseudo-aside to Addam. "She won't even take the honorific once!" And, eyes cast sideways to see if she was laughing...not laughing, no, but smiling warmly. So that was fine. Good, even. Maybe.
"You're exactly like Addam described you - and that's a good thing, you know! No shame in having people care about you. Come, sit down, I've got tea and cookies."
Into the dining room, she led them, after Addam had laid down his greatsword in a mudroom off to one side and unbuckled some of the largest bits and bobs of armor. Home though he may have been, Minoth made himself none so corporeally comfortable, and sat where Adele directed without any further attempts at humor.
Once seated, there was an expectant silence that stretched on for far too long - and that may have been all of thirty seconds, after all, but it was still long enough for Minoth's hand to go up to scratch at his jaw, and that was always his reminder to get out of his thoughts and into the scene.
First order of business: "You should know, I can't stay very long."
"Oh?" Adele pressed, more calmly than brightly and none deterred from her firm but gentle welcoming mood. "How long is very long, to you?"
"Agh...a few weeks, I suppose?" How much longer he wished it could be. "Amalthus has awakened a new Blade, against everything I tried to warn him of, and I'm afraid if I'm not there that...that Malos will lose himself in the darkness like I would have, if not for you," he finished, sparing a glance into Addam's eyes.
"The darkness?" The darkness. No more time for longing looks. Get down to it.
Minoth sighed, pressed clammy hands within the gloves to his cheeks. "Amalthus insists that this world is condemned by the Architect itself. That we will all fall to ruin by our own hands, and it is the duty of Malos, a Master Blade, to bring about that dread end that much sooner, by any corrupted means possible."
"And surely you don't believe that," Adele said, not unkindly. "Nothing Addam's ever told me of you has suggested that you would believe in something so despicable."
Minoth shook his head. "I don't believe it, no. But Malos does, and he doesn't seem to believe in much of anything else. He just does as Amalthus tells him, with hardly any thought shown for absolutely any internal volition. It just makes me wonder...am I crazy? What if this is really...the way?"
"Well." Addam leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and sighed a deep sigh. "You've never struck me as anything close to crazy. You're very deliberate in all your decisions, and there's no one I know who really has considered the purpose, the future, of this world, more than you have. And I very much doubt that what you're describing is 'the way'."
"Oh, sure," Minoth started back, with the itch of frustration threatening, "I've considered everything. But what does it all even mean, in the end? If Malos won't hear me? If he won't see?"
Adele tilted her head in nascent recognition of something crucial. "I think that'll be a big part of it."
"Huh?" Of course it will. That was the entire point.
"You said won't," she clarified. "You didn't say can't."
Minoth groaned. "Can't, won't...under Amalthus's resonance, sometimes I think it's all the same."
"And just how bad is it? Just how many have died by this scourge?" Addam asked gingerly.
Ah. That's the kicker, isn't it. "I don't know. Nobody knows. Not even Malos himself."
"Well." Adele rapped tidy fingernails on the tabletop, and stood up. "If you can stay for even just those few weeks, I'm sure it will be better than nothing, and I would like nothing more than to help you figure out what you should do about your friend."
My...friend? Can I ever, could I ever, consider the robotic countenance of heaven's death knell made humanoid a friend?
But, then, Addam has considered me a friend, and so has Adele. So has the entire estate. And I fear myself far too similar to Malos already.
Eventually, Minoth nodded, accepting both Addam's and Adele's affirming hands. "Sure thing. I can only hope that it'll be worth it, in the end."
Three times, Minoth left Indol, looking for something kinder and better than the place where he had been born and subsequently desecrated, in word and in deed. The third time he returned, it was with a resolve to show another, one very like his brother, the wisdom and the truth of all that lay beyond. The worth, if only he'd deign to see it.