Who is the gaucho, amigo?

"A Blade?" asks Mythra. She doesn't say "who is he" or "how do you know him" because she's quite straight to the point, and those things don't really matter, all dynamics considered. The hand is flung to hip, and the eyebrow is raised. Any old old friend would be fine. But this one? He's an outlier. He's a threat. Isn't he? Hugo, to her back, wonders the same thing.

"A Flesh Eater?" asks Lora. She doesn't say "that sounds quite difficult" or "how did that happen to you" because she's quite accidentally blunt at times, and she's confounded enough not to wander to sympathy. The hand is brought to breast, instinctually, but the grace doesn't immediately carry. Stumble, stumble, stumble. Is he so arresting? Jin, to her back, wonders the same thing.

"A cowboy?" asks Brighid. She doesn't say "that's a novel form" or "how did you come to be this way" because she's reserved with her compliments, and at this stage of her many incarnations not so much so with her jabs. The hand is propped to chin, and something in the eyelids quirks, perhaps suggesting slight derision, as mild and conversational as the questioned quip is. Aegaeon, to her back, wonders the same thing.

Haze has no such pointed, motive question. Neither do the boys; they don't care enough in their wariness to ask - and so that's no credit to them, acting as if it's all the adults' fault that they're left out of the loop. The youngest among them trust the quickest, no matter how they present their impression.

Everyone else has a clearly defined reason for coming along, for joining the band. Minoth has come along, apparently, to watch Addam's padded ass and make sure his circuitously straightforward enthusiasm doesn't get the best of him. That makes no sense at all, in the grand scheme of things, because defeating Malos necessitates no such petty bodyguard role. Addam didn't travel with a retainer for a whole year, and he isn't so stupid as to ignore such a crucial preparation, if it were truly prudent. So it's a joyride, a casual affair, a fling.

Is it?

The first question was asked of both Addam and Minoth, the second of Minoth alone, and the third of Addam alone. Good and fitting for those closest to Addam to take the situation most fully into hand, but somehow none of them managed to strike at the true, truest, truth of it all.

They do not kiss in quiet corners, they do not sneak off to do even more secretive activities on cliffs and in dunes when all the others are asleep, they do not monopolize each other in any way fuller than snapping banter across the group when their quests come to a head. They don't even often team up on minor details together, because Addam rightly deems it a better opportunity for, say, Mythra and Lora to have a crack at bonding (no, not that kind, much as he might wish it under his breath) than for he and his old friend to literally woolgather together.

Mythra stands at Addam's right hand, and Milton, plus Mikhail, at his left. Lora stands before him, the figurehead of their journey, with Jin and Haze hand in hand. Hugo stands at his back, quiet but prescient, Brighid and Aegaeon his effectors as much as his protectors. And where does Minoth stand? The symmetry has already been made up across all of Gormott and the breadth of Aletta, the roles already cast and set.

He doesn't have to stand anywhere, because...well. It's silly, but I'll say it. He's already there, in his prince's heart. Addam could never forget him, never wanted to have to. Wherever they met, whenever they last exchanged glances and handshakes and nothing so maudlin as lingering touches, oh, Minoth swears the pretty prince's million-volt grin couldn't have been half so wide. He himself doesn't smile a quarter that much the entire time.

Why not? Why doesn't he? Isn't he happy?

Really, it would help if he was. Once, when Addam directs Mythra to tag along with him to check on some writ or other from the bowels of Auresco, she finds herself suddenly saddled with sussing out what this guy's deal is, and whether or not it combined with her bad-at-people-ing demeanor is gonna get them sneered out of the market stall. So it's ground zero.

It's like what Milton said to her, once. Smiley little twerp. Only Minoth's not a twerp. She looks like more of a shrimp next to him than Milton ever has or ever will next to her. But nevertheless. "You know you don't have to stick around with us if you, like, hate us. Or whatever."

Minoth looks down at her, gaze distant and lips twitching between shut and parted. "I don't...come on. Do you remember the name of the woman we were supposed to meet here?"

Hmph. If Mythra can't get away with sitting out half the unpleasant things they've got to contend with - people, mostly, happy and sad and proud and poor and everything in between - then Minoth won't either. He does manage to skate out of that one, on that afternoon, however, and does the same with Lora, and Brighid, and Hugo and Jin and Aegaeon, and Haze and the kids, offhand, even though each has their own individual method of inquisition that has to be highly effective against one target or another, overall.

Eventually, one or two or three or six of them get fed up with the bogus mystery of it all, and they corner Addam while Minoth is off in the woods bug-hunting alone.

"What's his deal?"

"Why doesn't he talk to any of us?"

"Why does he seem to trust you?"

"Why is he even here?"

And Addam opens his mouth to answer, heaves up quite an anticipatory breath, then lets it out, shakes his head. "Those aren't my questions to answer." None of them? "But if you're all uncomfortable with his presence, I can...ask him to leave. If that's what you would like?"

Six or three or two or one heads shake their answer. "No, it's fine. Forget we said anything." But Addam doesn't forget, of course. He motions for the rest to disperse, and when Minoth returns with a pouch full of Berryhoppers, Addam greets him with a cautious hand reached across the space between them. He doesn't call his name.

"Something wrong, Prince? You've got a boo-boo you need me to kiss better?"

Addam shakes his head again. "No, I'm quite alright. But what about you?"

Shrugging his shoulders back and giving them an exploratory roll, Minoth seems to examine his arms and chest for just such a picayune injury, slaps distractedly at the sides of his cheeks to check them over. "All limbs still attached, as you would say," is his final anti-scientific pronouncement.

Hm. Would have been more convenient if there had been something wrong, in all honesty. How to broach this delicately?

"Everyone else seems to think that you would...rather not be traveling with us."

"Ugh. Right. I'm sorry to say it's as much a mystery to me as it is to you, my prince." Then, like the flip of a switch, he goes from groan to grin, and Addam falls in love all over again. He's learned what the grins mean, though.

"You're bluffing," Addam protests. "You know exactly what's been bothering you, and even if you understandably won't make a fuss about it with anyone else, I should think you'd at least be willing, be wanting, to tell me."

By now, Minoth has started rustling around among the beetles for what is quite obviously nothing in particular. "Minoth." He doesn't look up, but he stills.

"What was the first thing you said when I showed up?"

Addam doesn't even have to close his eyes to remember. It's burned bright upon his mind, and once again he doesn't ever want to forget. What a reunion... "I called your name."

Minoth nods, nose still turned down. "And after that?"

"Well...you said something about me being slow, or stupid, or impotent-"

"-and I was joking-"

"-and I said I thought I'd told you to stop calling me 'your prince'."

"And you were joking?"

"And I was joking."

Being insincere by whatever stretch, anyway. "And after that?"

Addam furrows his brow. "Is this a practice script reading, or something? After that, I introduced you, and we finished off the Jagron, and so on and so forth, and we all lived happily ever after - as you would say."

Minoth groans again, practically crosses himself in his frustration. Is Addam really, truly that dense? Should he not, after all, have been joking?

"You called me Amalthus's Blade."

"Oh."

"I thought you, of all people, would know not to say that."

"Oh," says Addam, again.

"And on top of that," and here Minoth finally fully engages with the conversation that he didn't start but that he sure as hell did want to have, "you haven't once referred to me as your own Blade. Now, I get that you don't want to screw Mythra up any further than you already have, and I get that you've got an image to keep up, and I get that you're freaking married," (the quasi-curse is intensified somehow wholly in its own right, not at all to do with its shrinkage before its coarser cousin), "but none of that changes the fact that I feel like shit because of it."

What an idiotic misstep, oversight, full-on macroaggression. "I'm sorry," is Addam's opener. But, in his defense (this is the quiet part that he cannot at any cost say out loud), "I didn't think you would want that, either. I thought, you know, you valued your independence." Above all else. Certainly above me.

Exasperated and overextended, Minoth rubs gloved thumbs over the upper inner corners of his eye sockets. Addam, for once, is entirely right. To lose his identity to being merely an attachment at Addam's princely side would be a massive mistake, misjudgement. But still...

"I'm a Blade, Addam," he offers at last. "I'm allowed to want to have a Driver." I'm allowed to want you. Aren't I?

Still paralyzed, Addam fumbles on the rejoinder. "Yes, I suppose that's true..."

"Never mind. It's alright." Minoth turns to go stow his bugs, and once again Addam doesn't stop his movement by touching him, by calling his name, just vaguely starts in his direction. Back he turns, again. Again, again, again.

"I'm sorry."

"I know you are."

"I love you."

"I know you do."

"But it's not alright."

"I know it isn't."

Oh, Minoth...if you were easier to understand, you wouldn't have captivated me so, but sometimes I wish it were so all the same. Can I be your Driver? Can I love you in that way without hurting you, irreparably, like he did? It would be damned insensitive of me to claim that this is just as difficult for me as it is for you, but in some ways it is.

"I wish it were so easy as just...claiming you, in that way. But it's far more complicated than I ever would have thought, when I was younger. When I first met you."

"That's fine by me. Just like I said, you were always slow to finish a job."

"Minoth!" Addam swats an indignant hand somewhere in the general vicinity of Minoth's arm, and Minoth dodges the swipe, but catches the hand anyway. Holds it, clutches it tight.

"Do you want it?"

"I do."

Minoth closes his eyes, breathes a quiet breath. Lets himself fall to gentility, away from the guardedness. "That's all I need to know."

The others return just in time, just on cue, and they read the contented peace radiating off of the unlikely duo, and they understand a little bit better than they did just some half of an hour earlier - just a little bit. They all sit at the campfire once more. Together.

"Aegaeon!" Minoth cries when they've settled, grinning once more. "Catch anything good today?" Aegaeon cocks his head, eager to pontificate on this or that icthyological phenomenon, and when Jin leans in to learn what's been foraged for too, Minoth nods to each of them in turn, perfectly sanguine.

Makes eye contact with Mythra, and tries to silently apologize. Arches a brow at Brighid and shoots back her sharpness, gazes at Lora and thinks, I really hope he sees you as an example, because oh, Architect, I do.

Isn't it fine, to be Blades? To learn from each other? And to know that our Drivers are watching on, and we will always be safe with them. Always. Promise? Always.

To be sure, by the end of it all, they still don't really know who he is, who he was. Maybe he's changed by being with them, maybe he's stayed the same, but the general consensus would be that of all of them, he changed the least. Was changed the least.

Who are you? How do you know him? He is so distinct, so distinctive, yet you've never brought him up before. But then, isn't that just how Blades are?

Addam has never been one for subtlety, but he tends to it here. Perhaps because it's what Minoth would have wanted, or so he would have thought. These things take time, you see. Time they simply didn't have enough of, once one factors in all of the wasteful mistakes.

No, knowing this one thing, stitching shut this one fragmented join, wouldn't have saved Torna, but just as every little action their team took had a rippling effect on all the next five hundred years of history, and thus all those that came beyond, so perhaps every little interaction between the eleven of them might have better charged their effort, in the end.

We'll never know, really. Cole would dream about it, through his words, would think, damn, you would have thought we couldn't have missed, that we were golden, and it's a marvel that he even reflected that fondly on the man who inadvertently did him so wrong, but in the end, it was imperfect. All perfect things are, aren't they?

A Blade? A Flesh Eater? A cowboy?

Yes, all of those things. And a partner, and most of all a friend. Don't you think so?