all, or nothing at all
This isn't a new question; not a fresh concept such as to shake the foundations of a practically-conjoined stream of Blade-and-Driver thought, employed and enjoyed for some greater share of a decade. Neither had it ever needed to be posed bluntly, unsubtle and dropped with all the weight and precision of a Shield Hammer.
(All the slowness of one, moreover. All the long-building pre-emphasy.)
It simply is. And Brighid's opinion, though Mòrag might buck against it, is just the same as it has always been. What a talent she has, herself, for being blessedly unsubtle, when she wishes it.
They're beyond petty reassurances that preserve appearance for others, no matter station or nobility, that might look on.
"Lady Mòrag, I would live forever as your heart, or I would not live at all. There is nothing else for me."
"Nothing, Brighid?" Mòrag's tone is querulous, yet oddly firm. "I cannot allow myself to take away your individuality. Your freedom, even as you remain a servant of the Empire."
"What freedom I have," Brighid replies, "I give willingly to your side."
In other words, what Mòrag cannot allow herself, Brighid will allow for her.
How ironic. That Mòrag, by wishing to prevent herself from taking control or advantage of any of Brighid's faculties for even the faintest instant, now stands to bar her from that which she professes most deeply and ardently to want.
"I...suppose I must think about it."
That much, surely, is her own due.
Is she afraid vainly, cosmetically, of aging, or in fact of not doing so?
There's the matter of Niall, and outliving him, of course. What will the Empire do with a Special Inquisitor who might still appear young and fresh but in actuality is couched in the old ideas of a lustrum ago, let alone a century?
There would be no point in living on as any type of Special Inquisitor at all, right now, however. Mòrag finds she's lost the lustre of fighting for empire, exclusively and uninquisitively, if she can't really change anything. Now, the present is a time of utmost change, for all of Alrest, but the Empire sees it as an opportunity, of this much she is sure.
If she does not, then, take up opportunity herself, she is foolish.
Not that Brighid would ever tell her so (she comforts herself, she shies from fear, but of course the possibility is there that Brighid may finally snap and speak sternly to her Driver as she so very rarely ever has; she hasn't needed to).
And it's simple, right? There's no inherent confidence that just because Amalthus could do it so cleanly, so too could anyone else on Alrest with a vested interest, seeing as how the late Praetor had had the benefit of five hundred years and dedicated, sinister, clandestine laboratory spaces, complete with assistances, all to practice with, on many a subject. But, still, Mòrag tries to have a measure of faith.
Why do they even consider this? Why would they even think to tamper with...natural order? Could one even call it that? It's what the Architect had created, however much respect Mòrag can bring herself remain to harbor for one such as him.
Mòrag denies that it is something so base as feeling left out from all the special-er children (yes, that's what Zeke is, even if he has grown on her like quick-croaching Glutinous Sand) with their special-est bonds and Blades. Oh, vehemently.
...quite?
Special. As if the figureheads of Mor Ardain are not special. As if to have climbed the World Tree at all is not special. As if to be the most normal of these specialtons is not, itself, special.
What Mòrag troubles herself most to access is the truth of whether or not it is shameful, it is base, to want something so simple, so childish. To be special. To enjoy, most fully as dictated possible by the Architect and then again by other sources, the bond with a Blade which has been ultimately gifted to you.
If she cannot think of a reason to share in what is asking to be gifted by Brighid (and this is the easy part), then surely she should be able to contrive an argument against.
But she can't. To exist as she is right now would just be to continue playing it by halves.
Unbecoming of the Special Inquisitor. Unbecoming of the Flamebringer. Unbecoming of the valiant woman, singular and staunch, Mòrag Ladair.
Cut the Core Crystal. Incise the flesh. Make of two bodies one conjoint soul, which has already existed for a decade foregoing and which is at risk of stagnation, are it not to be progressed to this ultimate point.
Mòrag paces, absent Brighid's calming hands.
What is she afraid of? What is she afraid of?
Is she afraid of scalpels, medical procedures? She has been so lucky, all her life, not to fall victim of the sickliness that had claimed many an Ardanach, dating back to Emperor Hugo with the untimely passing of his father. She has visited many a hospital bed, heard many a euphemistic explanation from a well-meaning nurse and a distraught doctor.
What would Brighid say?
Something tempestuous, if Mòrag tried her too petulantly. Something flickering with flame.
Never would she be cold again. Never would she be alone with her thoughts, left to ponder.
A personal choice, it is. Mòrag has not even begun to consider the benefit, or detraction, toward or from the Empire.
On the one hand, with the Driver of the Aegis more or less proudly bearing his status as a sort of Blade Eater - an absolution of shared life-force, regardless - this would see the Empire most totally aligned toward the goals of, generally, Leftheria. Uraya had not sent a representative. Indol is gone. Tantal tries not to care.
On the other, it could bring a discredit to the ability of the Empire's Drivers, and whether or not the worth of a Driver continues to be a great currency, they would certainly not do well to toss away their supreme advantage right from the first.
Mòrag, the unit, the political piece. Brighid, no better than ever she has been, a mere foundling of mankind's begotten treasure.
As if it changes anything. As if they are not very nearly there, already. As if all this senseless stupefaction has accomplished anything, for anyone, anywhere on the entirety of newfound Elysium!
Seabirds crying, beyond her palace window. Cool air rushing where it never, for five hundred years, has.
Mòrag stops pacing. Uncurls her fists at her sides. Breathes.
No more will she founder. No longer will she be lost.
Brighid is not all that contemplative, when it comes to her own future. She is handily able to reflect upon others' past decisions, choices, peaks and valleys, and cross-reference this emotional information against that which is contained in her vast library of imperial journals. She is able to see the truth for what it is, immediately.
She doesn't see any point of contention, here. The thought of living on without her does not appeal to me. No histrionics necessary, no hyperbole. Does not appeal. Is not ideal. Would not suit. Not worth trifling about.
If she, as a Blade, has the chance to live on for as long as the world - that is, as long as the other long-lived Blades and their Drivers would see it - will have her, with her precious Driver and companion, partner, soulmate halfand half-again by her side, then she will take it.
The thought of perishing in the process either does not occur to her or does not worry her. Dying now, dying then...
Is there no greater adventure than this? No greater sacrifice, now that the issue of global sunder has been solved? Even in advance of the great tower's, inorganic tree's, collapse.
Neither is she casual about it. No, this is quite serious. Brighid does not know what the process will entail, but she is prepared for it. She could not suffer worse for better.
She could acquire the information she needs to prepare a decision, should the decision be hers (that is to say, she has already yielded, and she does not wish to renege), from any of a dozen sources, surely. Pandoria and Zeke would provide, and the scholars of Tantal, and those survivors of Indol who might wish to preserve a shred of either dignity or grace.
To win by intimidation...it's not what Brighid wishes, now. As much as she has enjoyed, for five hundred years and longer, the natty little entitlement of being able to scare soldiers stiff in every continent, ever farthest- and furthest-hurled land, Mòrag's confidence is more than enough.
Even if Mòrag should not maintain this gift, which she doubtless will, Brighid would be all-encompassed, obsessed and possessed.
Is it only too human to wish to be possessed, to be guarded and guided by a soulmate's beaming light?
Mòrag's fire smolders deep and low, without Brighid to her side. She is as embers only - no flatter, no self-aggrandizement. It simply is.
It does not weaken. It does not slacken. It does not crumble and die away.
From strength to strength, she'd once heard it said. The canny sound of the statement rings in her mind, more powerful than the millennium drift of a Core Crystal's closure.
And, too...the thought of having lived without Mòrag, an awakening ago... Brighid is surely glad that she cannot remember such a time; how bitter and empty would be the recollection, like pages turned stiffly through the unremarkable leaves of an uncut journal. It is only the others once present that dare to amuse her, not the feeble thought of another bond.
There's no going back now. How could anyone even begin to fathom the thought?
But then, this is the task at hand: consider what indeed does hold them back from the future, while the rest of Alrest, transplanted into Elysium, thunders on.
Holding onto olden notions. Begging the sacrament of disdain for those fairy stories where there were once heard marriages between Drivers and Blades. It pretends that Blades are less, does it not, if they do not join? And Brighid wouldn't want Mòrag to be guilty of that any more than she would want for it to be spoken upon her own lid-eyed head.
Maybe she is being presumptuous...? Maybe Mòrag's little hints, at times when her most direct of usual communication has suffered, stumbled, flagged, were not enough to truly confirm what Brighid finds to be intrinsic, intuitive, evident, obvious.
"Lady Mòrag," she had murmured, when the clanking echoes of footsteps within the tree - for the tower itself was eerily silent - had subsided, "do you truly envy the other Drivers? Those who have been bound so eternally, and inextricably, to their Blades?"
She'd made it sound like a hushed incredulity - perhaps that had been her mistake. Perhaps she had fashioned an incidental façade. Mòrag's response, dark and drawn-up: "Those of us who feel without a sense of direction are always envious, even if we'd rather not believe it."
A tautology. A bare, subtle admission of guilt. Even if they both were keenly equipped to speak in riddles and nuances for the benefit of senators and kings, their plain speech required earnest questions to which to respond. To give a soft-touch sentiment while still among the others, in ensemble...
Indeed, Brighid has processed upon assumption, aided by intuition.
She can bide time. She can certainly bide by Mòrag's command. For her, it is a privilege, to be able and present to do so. Others never will enjoy it so much, and thus Brighid enjoys it all the more.
What would Mòrag say?
Something objective, checked-out from the facts at hand by the behest of an urge to stave her own indecision from reaching Brighid's invisible ears. Something unimpassioned, incomplete, just waiting for Brighid to drive the nail.
Her facets would be cleaved. The center would be extracted from her crest of flame. If the procedure were not carried out with the utmost of precision and care, Brighid could see herself erupting and sublimating into supernova (whether out of anger or something lesser, greater).
All the unreachable perfection of stars. All the comets and meteors, passing them by as they remain twin-bodied, pair-souled.
Hearts ever joined. Beating chests in wild synchrony. Brighid feels herself purple with flush, even now.
It's not such a big difference. It's just the slight of an inch, a centiped, a cetri.
But for a life - a partnership - with Mòrag to feel only as an compromise, a lack of action and a path unentreated?
This is what cannot stand, what irks, what assassinates. No, they must move forward.
People would notice. The gossip of the Empire, a brutal system, dictates that they are bound to notice.
Notice their pride. Notice their trust. Notice their bond.
When proposed in such a way, Brighid should be more than ready to abandon the pretense of reputation. She is all surety, and always has been; she is letting doubt creep in to a vessel that holds none, bears none, has no space for it.
She turns back toward the palace, releasing the fervent clench of her jaw.
Ramparts clear. Gauntlet laid.
Their time has already more than come.