the double-down rodeo

"You are going to have to explain it now, you know."

Addam, in a post-timely fashion, had taken Azzar aside for some important explainers on the nature of Tornan kingdom politics and the role Addam happened to play in all that - indeed, his campaign to have his campmates drop all the ceremony and just call him Addam really had stuck, evidently, because Azzar hadn't gleaned a word of it. Not that it called its parents, or anyone else, Master. Only Flora, it seemed, had that fine southern-genteel honor.

She was, if it needs and bears repeating, perfectly charmed to be presented with such a fine gift, upon Azzar's initial visit. Why, how pleasant! How handsome! How sweet! And above all, how absolutely serendipitous. But now she had to know why. For Flora was never, ever blandly incurious.

Though Minoth knew this, he could always see his way clear to pretend. "And here I thought you thought I thought I was going to get away with it."

Flora, crossing her arms high above her bump, turned her coyest, wryest eyes upon him. Rather, she had to look up, and a demonstrated history of working with little tykes made that all the more awkward, but she was none deterred.

She leveled at Minoth. Minoth leveled back at her, contented grin growing. But no demanded explanation came.

"Fine! I'll take a substitution. You are going to have to kiss me now, you know."

This instruction Minoth received much more readily, with cupped hands and bowing knees. Flora preened into the touch, hands still resting where they had been until Minoth pulled back and she instead reached out an arm to pull herself tight to his side.

"Of course I always miss you, but I never expect that you'll come back to me with a surprise like this."

Minoth waved away the jab. "What surprise? Horses have four legs, don't they? That's so you can always hear them coming."

Naturally, there was no way Minoth genuinely thought of this as an impeccable logical line - he was far too self-aware, too self-effacing, for that. If he had successfully gotten Flora to ponder the relation of stealth to equine maneuvers, that was between her (and him) and the fencepost.

Fenceposts so attractively (that is to say, well-manneredly) straight-stood as Azzar, for instance.

"Fine," replied Flora, leant-over head just brushing the front side of Minoth's shoulder. "No surprise. An accident?"

"It has been known to happen, Flora."

She had to whip her head up to get a proper gauge on whether or not Minoth's eyes had flicked to her stomach as he said it, but she still couldn't quite catch the trick. Well, his sense of comic timing was certainly his own.

"It's not that I see a problem, here," she said slowly, reassuringly. "I'm just...confused."

Which would indeed be an important detail, considering how happily she'd received Azzar; Flora was not generally a two-faced hostess with lips for the guests and teeth for the staff.

She peered up at Minoth again, and saw that he was thinking - or, if not thinking, then simply waiting. Walking the dear lady back inside the manor, out of the harsh sun (as if she really minded, the spat of spitting rain departed, but that was the general thrust), was solemn enough a duty as it was.

Here a stop to chat with Vez, the same old small talk. There a pause to look back out over the moor from the perch of the adjoining wooden roof.

Flora eventually deduced that Minoth was using this time, as they made their unhurried way down to the library, to vent out all of his distractedness, for as much as she'd trained him well to the comforts of being one of her beloved suitors, he only had so much easy rapport to spare at one time.

So she let him alone with his silence. So she cherished his strong, quiet company.

On the loveseat, he offered her a cushion to herself, then sat, knees a-creaking, only for Flora to mischievously swing her socked feet up and into his lap.

The bemused glance Minoth tossed her way, in Flora's opinion, read something of "You're kidding me, aren't you?" But those...those were fightin' words. So, rather than make any remark, Flora just smiled from the very center of her lips.

(And then, regardless, he pulled her close again.)

"If I recall Mythra's words on the subject, she'd intended to write over, or perhaps up, a copy of Minoth," he gestured to himself just as the Aegis herself had done, "for the purposes of bonding to one Addam Origo, lifetime. Eh...minor change of plans. Call it a reinterpretation, if you must."

"So it's you," Flora concluded. This much had been immediately apparent.

"For the most part. Some of Addam, too, though. I think."

"You think?"

"Weellll, he was involved with it. Surely."

"Surely," repeated Flora. Minoth was not, she thought, expressly offended by the mocking, but he did grow quiet and wrap his arms close around her, as he withdrew to think.

Maybe some of Azzar's features were sharper, like Addam's. Maybe the texture of its hair, or its heavier-set proportions. Maybe Addam's more specific brand of anxiety. Maybe a subtle streak of happy-go-luckiness.

As if that was how directly the traits were determined. Now, if you took a look at Haze, you might believe that. But Flora didn't allow herself to draw it all into such blunt boxes, so quickly.

Minoth's Core Crystal, as it happened, was just gently kissing (figuratively, shall we say) the shell of Flora's ear. This reminded her of how often and how very much he despaired of his status as a "special" Blade. As an exception.

"Are you worried? About Azzar?"

Minoth murmured something indistinct, then replied, "I can only wonder. Where it ends up, and when." Really not a very sensible way to have children, now, was it? "But with you and Addam..."

"No, no." Flora twisted about in order that she might see Minoth's face more clearly, and brush a few stray hairs from where they hung over his scar-side eye. "I told Azzar I was in some way related. I'm not about to be your surrogate, like that." Supposing that circumstances were indeed as they appeared.

"I'm not ashamed of it, though," Minoth said, ignoring the admonition. "It'll do fine."

Ah, this. "You can be proud of it, I rather think," teased Flora. "It is your first and only child."

"Glad to hear you think so. How about doubling down? You want one?"

What would be the odds? Could you just keep rolling until you got something - someone - nice? All's good so long as it's free, right? And say, where had Mythra gotten that "blank" Core Crystal from, anyway?

"Minoth, I love you dearly, with all that I have, but that's a bit much."

"And how much is too much?"

Without leaving Flora time or space to respond, Minoth followed up his boundary-pushing behavior in word with scoundrel's deed: a line of kisses all along her temple, opposite cheek cradled roughly in his palm.

"Wh- hey-- Minoth!!"

She could feel and hear him smiling against her face, then chuckling to himself, then laughing full out. Maybe Blades, too, had a sort of hormonal reaction to the long-awaited (or not, rather instant gratification) arrival of their own progeny. Seeing as one couldn't exactly call Azzar a newborn, now, could one?

Oh, but it was funny, wasn't it? It was improbable, and then again it was like winning a lottery tailor-made for a difficult, dry-witted man who might deserve, in fact, to be faced with a dose of his own personality, without even the squishy bits to hand.

Having, however, plentiful squishy bits to hand right then and there, Minoth seemed to be convinced to temporarily forget about the complexity arisen - and Flora, of course, was quite satisfied.

notes i never gathered last time

what if resonance modification -> bladespawn accident
mythra tries to put minoth on a core crystal but instead she puts minoade on a core crystal

trying to decide if i handwave finding a blank core crystal in the titan matrix or make a point out of mythra deleting a common blade because she thought it was okay, or some combination of the two
because haha. it's so much easier when i can say pneuma just went to staples

clears throat. she used a beast blade but we're skipping past digitgrade this thing is gonna have HOOVES
no horse game were harmed in the making of this oc

*DIGITIGRADE but we excused me. being on my :blood::demon: