does a gay little walk that pisses you off

In Estham, he'd stumbled. Teary-eyed, snotty-nosed, scratches on his face that he'd not just not cared to tend to but in fact hadn't even known how, he'd shuffled from place to place, dreading the next call of his name (or not even) to do some duty he had no investment in whatsoever - not even that of saving his own skin and skinny behind.

In Torna, he'd trotted. Like a little pack animal, almost bright but then again not really, he'd followed sprightly warriors who practically bounced along their path, and he didn't dread their knowing of his existence really at all. It was fine. He was fine. She said they were family. That was fine. He could call this a unit, and march with it sure enough.

On Spessia, he ran. He ran on legs that weren't mean to windmill this fast, scraping and tearing at the ground with his stubby fingertips and bitten-off nails, half the time being pulled by Haze's strong, soft, cool grasp and half the time jerking her behind him in awkward, ragged bursts of strength. He ran far beyond the point at which he knew it no longer mattered.

In Indol, he didn't move hardly at all. Whatever whispering was in motion, that was what he did, if anything. He didn't let himself be dragged, no, but he didn't provide any locomotion that coalesced absolutely any spare bit of free will. He hadn't had it. He submitted, very nearly, to the fact of his own lack of choice.

And then he saw the speed at which Jin moved, defying all conventional verbs, and the confidence with which Malos carried himself, defying all conventional words, and eventually, little by little, step by step, turn by turn, bit by bit, he taught himself to dance.

Taught himself to move in circles, to dodge in stride, to spin around and be untouchable by friend or foe alike, to make manifest incongruous joy even when he didn't have it - for real, this time. Whatever alien symbiosis he osmosed with the Blade embedded in his chest, he made the best of it. He was the best of it. The best of them all.

Mikhail was his own Paragon, before the world, even as his erstwhile and ersatz caretakers weren't really, anymore. So he moonwalked, suspended in terribly violent lock-step motion.

And then, then, then, when it came time for the final attack on Indol, the final bout of slave versus master and Blade versus Driver and eaten versus eater halfway backwards again, Mikhail walked. With all the confidence he'd ever had in his pitifully short, pitifully long life, and so much more so besides, he walked - didn't saunter, didn't salsa, didn't whisk, didn't wing, just walked.

Here and now, in the present so soon to become past, he walked up to the terminal console, flipped every last necessary switch, and sent the Marsanes careening its final impetus into the Indoline Titan herself.