Charming, Isn't It?

The clouds are white, white, white, far off that cliff away from the remotest beach in Leftheria. The ship is black, black, black, and of course it cannot but sink. But Pyra, inside, is fire. Mythra, inside her, is light. Addam, not so long ago, crackled with his own compassionate electricity. So why are you all so damp and darkened, now?

The world did it to us, you see. The path of wear and war. It was all just too much. Anybody would look at it, at us, and say, oh, that's simply too much for any one person to handle. Of course you all bowed before such a challenge.

Only, it wasn't just one person. It was eleven, and nine, and then those done out in three by three. Even if we discard Minoth, which we don't often do, hadn't Addam Mythra to rely on, and Mythra Addam just the same? We are nothing if we do not go together, but...but what if we do?

The history books, and the chronicles of the future, talk of adaptability and courage and the potent fiery power of friendship. But didn't we have that? Perhaps...perhaps not so. Isn't it obvious? It's always questions, questions, questions I ask, but I may indeed be wrong. You'll let me know, won't you? Give me a shout.

Yes, give me a shout, next time something happens. So it wasn't traditionally Addam's way to tackle things head-on - not unless they were easy, and the strategy was clear. And oh, yes, his strategy with regard to the Aegis was surely clear.

You're not a child, Mythra. You're only one year old, Mythra. Do this, Mythra. Do that, Mythra - and for the Architect's sake, don't do that, please, Mythra.

Oh, much as Addam hates to admit it (because of course he has his pride, and he still hates to admit things even when the only one he is and even can admit them to is himself), he did not just fail at being Mythra's Driver, in any sort of tempered kind. He failed, beyond that, at being the guardian, the supervisor, the parental figure that he'd figured they needed.

As a child, he'd been a malleable sort, himself. He went where he was told, did what he was asked, was kind and supplicating and cheery to all around him, and if the caretakers in Leftheria had given him any more pushback on not wanting to dress like a girl, as they'd thought he should by rights and by birthrights (which is to say, any pushback at all), he probably wouldn't have gone through with it. But that's a tale for another time.

Addam awakened Mythra as the corporeal investment of all his pride and dreams for a swift and sure victory, a mythical toppling of the Dark Aegis's dread throne, and then was perplexed when those instructions pulsed so insistently in their Core that they couldn't help but exercise the fullest extent of their power at every opportunity. They knew they had to practice, to home and to hone, yet...when the feedback was so instantaneous telling them that the current approach already worked, monsters done and thoroughly dusted, why should they change?

It was the same as Addam, then. The rumblings around the capital of his good reputation and far preferability to one like Zettar (or, Architect forbid, Chaghan and Ashigu waiting malovently in the High Prince's half-bat half-hawk wings) should have told him to tend towards austerity, to make it clear that not only did he not want acclaim and power and chose instead the ineffectual before-and-after-hours hobby-trade of farming, he was indeed sage and ever more well-served for it.

Silly Lord Addam, Master Origo, we want you as our king! You're a fool to want to farm! You're...you're avoidant of responsibility and change, aren't you, just a little bit, but we'll ignore that. We always do. But do we? Truly, do we, do we, do we?

Be our savior, Mythra. Be our king, Addam. Even Khanoro knew about it, and wished for his son to take precedence - told Zettar so, in fact. But how much could he really have wanted it, if he sent Addam to Aletta how he did? Tell me, o great khan, how is it you're not ashamed to bury such pearls in the country?

The signs were there, always. Addam was right to restrain them. He was so very wrong. Mythra was right to act out against him. They were so very wrong.

I won't be anyone's anything. Please, don't joke about it. Even Amalthus, in his most back-twisted sub-subservient insubordinating dreams, never imagined the two of them presiding over creation in the way that any sort of synergy would have dictated them do.

Can you imagine it? Addam and Mythra, successful before the world, venerated and judicious just as...well. Just as Minoth told it? No, you can't. One man and the reflection of all his utmost folly made manifest humanoid never had a chance. One man who does not even trust himself, even. And maybe...maybe Amalthus knew that, indeed.

Amalthus was afraid of Malos, righteously terrified when the bulky beast emerged and regarded him so coolly, so coldly. He did not even try, once, to control Malos when it showed signs of not wanting to submit to the same. Would he have listened if anyone had tried to talk the Quaestor himself down, after all? No...no, no, no.

So Addam told Mythra to do all the things that he himself had been told, over and over and over, and they, like any sensible (insensible) individual, resisted. Had resisted, that is, until they'd had no choice but to hand the reins to Pyra, who fronted for the first time and immediately took his every inane suggestion, reprimanding admonishment, impotent command, under advisement. She made herself meek; Mythra did not do it.

Don't hurt anyone? Don't mind if I do - or don't, rather. Have more patience with my cooking? Absolutely. See what I'm capable of? And that's not to say that Mythra isn't, just the same. But it's not time for that. You didn't give them time for that. And, probably, they won't dare wake up until long after you're dead and gone, just so that they never, never, never have to feel that pain and rejection again.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt. We wanted surety. Addam watches the ship sink, sink, sink, and sees all his failures cast starkest black and white. He lets his shoulders slump; there is nothing so noble resting upon them anymore. There never was.

Charming, isn't it? That you should even get to go back home, take up the shovel, and bury your dead.