a woman worth more than any man
Addam's friend is tall and broad, big in the shoulders and narrow in the hips. The careless ponytail is well-maintained, the jagged brows a shield for piercing eyes.
Flora thinks that he must be Addam's type, certainly, all confidence in his own determination as well as the self-sworn duty of telling Addam what to do.
It's what attracted Addam to her, she knows (though she would never tell). Flora's innate charm: unshakeable self-possession. Things don't happen to Flora, beyond her control. They happen, and she observes them, and she dismisses them, in one. She doesn't have to wonder. She doesn't deal in bad news.
Bad news has a mind to deal with her, though, when Minoth makes his presence known.
"You're Addam's friend," she notes, so pleasant. It's nothing to do with her at all. But she likes to be accommodating.
Minoth grins down at her, something suspicious brewing between his cheek and eye. "Addam's a friend of mine, it's true. But I could have a few of those."
Flora blinks. Alright. That's fine. This one loves semantics.
(And check one about him deciding the fate of the prince and his princely affairs wholly unbeknownst to Lord Origo.)
But then he leans closer, over her, as if conjuring a wall against which to prop the flat of his forearm.
This close, Flora can see the contour of his chest.
His?
He winks at her. Watches her blush. Just subtly, works his jaw.
Oh, Architect, where does Addam find these people? One can imagine it's not half the same place as where he found her.
Minoth is a Blade, Flora finds out - except not, not quite anymore, because his Driver did something irrevocable to him, just to find out. And that, to Flora's mind, is both unconscionable and incomprehensible, negative and negligible. Why, yes, it's an absolutely contemptible thing if someone bound to care for you treats their own goals as a higher calling than your existence, but what are you going to do about it, now? How are you going to complain, forever?
You've got to dust yourself off and move on.
Minoth is moving, of course. He carries the chip on his shoulder lightly, as if its weight has been balanced across his back. He doesn't stoop, the hunch of burden, but he does have that darkness in his features, that sorrow in his expression.
So being a bit of a cavalier, a Dame Juan (the fairytale, not hardly age-appropriate, of the swashbuckler who set out to swoon a thousand hearts in conquest and impropriety), is his game, Flora figures. It's his focus point that makes living in his ever-changed body feasible, digestible, maybe even enjoyable.
He enjoys Flora. Flora enjoys him. Flora's short because of timely-tampered hormones. Minoth's tall because there's sometimes a refreshing lack of sexual dimorphism, if you're a Blade.
Some corny lines. Some classy ones. "What's a nice little lady like yourself doing all the way out here?" You know. That sort.
Flora would love to arch a brow and coolly reply, "It's not much, but it's honest work, and somebody's got to do it." That'd be her usual response to such baseless, if attemptedly polite, inquiry.
But that's not how she arrives. No, Minoth has her staring, and staring, and staring, eyes wide and blue and blinking, taken to the extreme of awestruck attraction. Flora loves everyone, and particularly women, but she's such a dab hand at it that sometimes she starts to wonder if she ever truly participates; if she's not just feigning the bells of whistles of exchanging affection.
This, with Minoth's gaze upon her, lit into her like a bullet making nice with a deer (oh, it's horrible, it's terrible, that she should think such a thing), is entirely different.
Oh, but Minoth's a gentlewoman, the very picture or at least the definition of dashing and debonair. So when he sees Flora faltering, he offers his hand without a word. She sort of nods toward it, sort of giggles to herself, and then his hand is on her back, thumb braced on the ripples of her ribcage. He just as easily turns her to face the same way as him, pulling her head in to just the level of his chest.
Brazen. Astonishingly so. Flora has to muster all her courage and coordination, her calibration of a lady's natural charisma, but she turns her cheek (and there it rests, so happily), remarking, "I suppose I was waiting for you to find me."
Minoth grins. "Consider yourself found."
The guns...the guns are interesting. They put the "revolve" into "revolver" with a ring of bullets circling the barrel, each perfectly equidistant and shuffling dutifully into place as required, when one of its sisters is shot.
A traditional gun, charged with powder, must be loaded with the equivalent number of brass-jacketed rounds of lead, and each of those shots incredibly careful in its aim. They don't use the like now, of course, what with the proliferation of Blades available and awakened for the vast number of combatants, mercenaries slaying monsters, et cetera, but Flora has read about the artifacts.
Minoth, with his pair of sleek antique arms, shoots as many as a dozen bullets from each pistol in one all-out attack. Does he go and pick them up, when he's done? Seeing as they're rather large, Flora could see a sort of effectiveness to it, but no...no, still, somehow, it doesn't suit.
"Where do they come from?" Flora motions to the weapons, laid carelessly at exact angles on the table. It's not polite, no, but Minoth does as he wishes, it seems. Flora lets him, anyway.
Minoth shrugs. "Me."
Flora crosses her arms, hunkers down. "Explain your answer." Like she's talking to a schoolchild, but Minoth thinks it's funny. Minoth thinks it's hot.
And Minoth obliges, when Flora puts him on the spot. "Some Blades' weapons have an energy blade, elemental effects, explosions, the works." He gestures vaguely in the air, partially to be demonstrative but primarily so Flora can grab his wandering hands and shove them away. "Mine have none, or little. Instead, the ether is used to generate the bullets. And the precision...?"
With a flick of his wrist, Minoth slings one gun up into the air and lets it take a few showy rotations before catching it. "That's all me."
"So it's all all you," concludes Flora.
"Every handsome inch."
That much arrogance should take away from his appeal. Instead, it makes Flora flush profusely, for the briefest second, and then she lets him kiss her with a knife covering the bare side of her face.
"You think you're so charming," Flora accuses him. He's walking away, or trying to, disappearing into some unknown recess of Alrest for Architect knows how long just because keeping himself in one place disagrees with his principal principle of independence and swagger.
"I think you're so charming," Minoth replies. "The rest does as it will."
The rest...the flashy shows of service? The unwritten and unspoken but express commitment to Flora's whims, whatever they may be? Minoth could have a dozen other paramours, but somehow Flora doubts it. The ironic dismissal of Addam says as much for that theory, anyway.
Is it enough, just to be charming? To be an accessory, unhomed?
She wouldn't want to have that life, she thinks. It's...well, she likes herself as well-ordered as she is already, as suited to her circumstances and her life among Armu and early childhood academics.
Minoth could come and go. Hopefully, he will. He'll figure out whatever it is he's missing - which might very well be Flora. Hopefully, it is.
Such a strange situation. She never would have expected it. But then again, that subdued outlook, that dry warmth and taste...
(He doubles back, just once, for another parting kiss. He looks at her with intention in his eyes.)
Flora has cold hands. Minoth will be so brave, and take them.