Let's polish up the structure...

"You know, Prince."

"What's that, Minoth?"

Though Milton had been begging his attention for minutes on end, it took an address from Minoth to actually snag Addam's eyes and ears up from where they'd been buried in his questing notes, and whenever that happened, the Gormotti boy knew (yes, even already) to give all the way up and sulk away with Mikhail at his tail.

"You called me Amalthus's Blade, a couple days ago. That all I am to you?"

Sat in his usual semi-crouched fireside position, Minoth near about looked to be on the offensive, while Addam was sat with back straight as usual and as ever, which certainly didn't help things.

"Why, not at all. I don't even think I could begin to tell you, sitting here."

Ah. Aha. Before Minoth could continue rolling with control of the conversation, Addam threw down a slightly different gauntlet. "Was there any particular reason you were asking?"

"Oh, no, no - just wanted to see how you're doing things, nowadays."

"Doing things?" The notes were folded up and stuffed in a pocket of those baggiest forest-green pants. Oh boy, not again. It was never easy, when that happened.

"You know, with your band of merry men." He'd have to catch the prince off guard again, just to be sure. "Here, let's do word association - I say Lora, you say...?"

"Jin." Of course. Even without having had a lick of time to get used to the game, Addam was ready with that one.

"Okay, not people." (He certainly wouldn't be able to handle "Amalthus" as an answer to "Minoth" should such a thing ever come up.)

"Nimble!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Minoth could spot the very lady bouncing up on the balls of her feet, trying to see over Jin's shoulder as he cleared aside some rotted branches concealing a mineral deposit. She was as she would always be. Would she ever change?

But no matter. For Minoth's purposes, he needed "A noun, Prince, you know what nouns are?"

Addam shifted in his seat, thumb planted not firmly but solidly (please, take note of the distinction) in its usual rubbing position upon his jaw. He, unlike Lora, wasn't one to fidget when he felt that he was suddenly failing a quiz, but if it came to chasing Minoth's approval...well.

"Erm...warrior. Warrior!"

"Fine. Good." Perfect, even. "Haze?"

"Wind." Close enough.

"Aegaeon?"

"Water." Again? You've no other opinions nor impressions about them?

Whatever. Onward. "Brighid?"

"Flora."

"Flora?"

"You know, plants, and things."

"Oh, sure. And how about Flora?" Couldn't have done it better myself, my prince.

"P- ah, no, a noun..." The opening consonant could, of course, have figured equally likely as "pretty" or "pink" and Minoth would have been the last one to argue either way.

"Wife," Addam produced triumphantly, if a little blushingly, at last. Jackpot, bingo, and all those other gambulating words - and it wouldn't have been the first time, but it probably (apparently) still felt like it. So...

"Minoth?" He shot it sideways, eyebrows arched but not too crafty, knee bouncing but only just barely.

And Addam's enthusiastic, even joyful response? "Cowboy."

Architect f--king damn it, Prince.

Taking note of Minoth's suddenly consternated expression, Addam attempted to explain himself: "Well, I didn't think Blade was quite right, and Flesh Eater is two words, you know. How about playwright, is that what you were going for?"

Great. So Addam knew that Minoth was "going for" something to begin with. So much for subtlety. But after all, he really wasn't sure what else he could do besides opening up his mouth and saying, "C'mon, Prince, lemme kiss your wife, pretty please?"

He didn't say that, though, instead offering, "I dunno, something like partner?"

Now Addam was the one who frowned. "Partner? That's far too stiff, for my tastes - it's almost like you calling me 'prince'!"

(Only Addam Origo, even south of encounters with Malos's colloquial ilk, would think the drawling sound of "partner" too stiff when fallen out of the not-even-self-professed cowboy Minoth's mouth. So much for subtlety, indeed.)

"No, no. I think..."

And then his lips shaped into a faint O, and then they stretched wide into a grin. "...ah. I see. You mean...boyfriend?"

"I mean husband," Minoth replied, grinning in kind. "Don't much care if it's customary, or even if it's too far that way, so long as you like it."

Of course Addam did, and of course Minoth's prediction was right. Now, did Addam happen to say anything additional, mentioning the pretty pink lady herself? Sure, he didn't, but was that Minoth's problem? To underextend assumptions, in easygoing circumstances?

Not a chance.

So that was the scene in Dannagh, or its villagerial approaches, or thereabouts, but back in Aletta, there were more terms to square up. Mungo was always wont to blather on about this or that while he took blood pressure or temperature readings for his patients, and usually Flora avoided, without even needing to try, gossip about the state of the militia camp and the circumstances which had begotten its erection, but right about now, she was curious.

"They said they're going to the capital?" she asked quietly, keeping her voice low so as not to tamper with the pressure reading.

Mungo nodded, and another doctor might even have appeared wise doing it. "Right to the top, milady. I do believe this is the closest Prince Addam has ever come to a real encounter with that Aegis. Marvelous, really, to think that he can spend all this time in Torna without a thought to his farm, or, well, you!"

Flora cast a furtive glance at the stack of letters propped between a lamp and a notepad on the nightstand; she had no concept as to how large or small it was, all in all - how often should a traveling husband send letters to his pregnant wife, anyway? Are there...rules for that?

(If there were, she would certainly know them, so there probably weren't, and that was that sorted.)

To Mungo, however, she simply replied, "Even though Torna at large has always been his first love, I'm sure he has plenty of thoughts for the homestead in particular. He wears his heart on his sleeve, but that doesn't mean he always says everything he's thinking."

Were Mungo not busy overfilling the pressurized cuff, he might have nodded so sagely again.

"After all," Flora added when she could breathe normally once more, "there are plenty of people with him. He's always been like that. It'll be the greater good first, and then he'll come home eventually."

"Come to think of it, there was another fellow with Prince Addam and company, last I saw them. They were fetching up the desert medicine, that's right."

Since Mungo's eyes were turned well away from those of his patient, as his ear was to her belly and his gaze was to the opposite wall, Flora had free reign to puzzle this out. "Another...fellow?"

"Yes...tall, if I recall, with the complexion of a Tornan royal and those very blue eyes. A ponytail too. Oh, he seemed a surly type, but cautious enough. Didn't take kindly to my support of Addam ascending to the throne."

"That sounds like Zettar. But what would he be doing here?" He still wasn't looking, and hopefully he still couldn't tell that she'd been set ever so slightly ill at ease.

"No no, my lady, certainly not Zettar - why, he was warning me against the very man! Thought it unwise to bandy about such things when the High Prince could get word, you see."

Well, but of course. "He was a friend to Addam, you say?"

"I'd certainly hope so. I'm glad he's on our side, whoever he is. Seemed rather dangerous, to be truthful with you."

"Dangerous?"

Like the best sport he was, Mungo gave a gamely lurch of faux shock as he arose, and grasped Flora's hand to lay it on top of her stomach instead, leaving it there with a gentle squeeze. Then, back to the theatrics:

"Oh, you know, he stood quite bowlegged, and had this big scar running right down the side of his face. I wouldn't like to know who, or what, he tussled with to get that. Why, I shudder even to think of it!"

And shudder he did, as he packed up his good doctor's bag, forgetting not an instrument but perhaps very many a strict hospital practice - and they call that bedside manner, don't they? Or maybe they don't...

But nevertheless. Flora wasn't watching, anyway. Her mind's eye was full of, oh, so many other things.

"You'd better be on your guard then, hadn't you, Mungo?" she teased, fussing idly with the ties on her braids as a silent signal to accompany the implicit instruction to shoo.

And after the good doctor left, the good lady found herself still, once again, quite alone, but instead of thinking about that, she turned on her side, hugging a pillow to her chest, and felt very, very warm indeed.

Yes, he'll come home eventually, and he'll bring all his dearest, oldest, strongest, most handsome troops with him. And I won't mind a bit.