The Goodbye Look

If one had to compare a pair of ladies from their recently victorious non-homogeny of warriors for Torna's front of Alrest's fatal cause, one likely wouldn't consider Flora and Brighid foremost. In fact, one wouldn't readily consider Flora herself at all, because she wasn't fighting, now was she?

No, she hadn't been - she'd been busy keeping house and having babies and whatever else of the sort you might fancy. But indeed, Minoth, from his regular vantage point in Aletta's library as the one always most eager to investigate parallels, saw fit to match the two all the same.

It wasn't as if he particularly relished the choice of this instance, personally, though. No no, he had found himself at...the cold end of the stick, so to speak, first.

Living quasi-permanently at Aletta was really everything he'd ever dreamed and more: warm days, temperate nights, cheery mornings and solitary afternoons striking perfect contrast to each other with never a snooping eye from Lora or Addam getting too far up into his business, which was, of course, chronicling the adventures they'd just had and those of all the honorable citizens that had rallied around them.

Brighid, then, also frequented the appreciably quiet place, gleaning books and pamphlets amassed by the previous lord of this estate for valuable information for her journals - this was, in fact, one of the primary reasons Hugo had been able to convince the Ardainian Senate that he, his Blades, and the Special Inquisitor should all remain in Torna for a week, then two, then a month further after Malos had been dispatched with.

Domnhall, on his subtly lengthening leash, could complain, and could be right about it, and his grim, leaching presence would be more than enough cause and signal for the people to be and become doubly indignant about the absence of their own dear sweet emperor, and Hugo would be conscious of it all but only sigh, sigh, sigh, for he simply didn't want to be on the throne himself at this time, and found life much more enjoyable in the workshop with Addam, Aegaeon hovering over his shoulder and Mikhail vibrating somewhere just under it.

But that's enough worldbuilding. The point is that the Ardainians were on an extended stay, Lora and Haze (the principal comparators from above, mind you, and if they'd been out of the running then perhaps Brighid and Mythra would have sprung to mind) flitted in and out with Jin sighing and following close behind, and Minoth found it very advantageous to sit astutely in sun-dappled armchairs and discuss perfumery with a certain...lady friend.

That was how he interpreted it, anyway. To Brighid, however, every day he overstayed a little bit more of his mysterious charm and turned a little bit more fully into a complete and total ham, one who wasn't even fully aware of her dwindling fascination.

But still, her eyes never opened. Her resolve never flickered, never danced like her battle-ready flames.

"How would you say this line, if you were my leading lady?" Minoth would question blithely, trying to be artful with the point of his pen nib but really falling over his cross-legged feet into a hack.

"Why, I don't know," Brighid would reply, still so sweet and beguiling despite the overall roughness of her nature - the Jewel was as yet uncut, unrefined. "I might not say anything at all."

And Minoth would smile, and make an appraising face, and mutter, "Should have thought of that one," and sit a little farther back in his chair until the next time he'd inched, inched, inched, to ask appraisal of her again.

"Do you like that outfit? Would you wear a different one, if you had the choice?"

Not necessarily a misogynistic question, but still one laced with stipulations of the male gaze. She didn't mind it. It was academic. It wasn't insensitive.

"I suppose I do. I don't see much point in a different one. It suits me - although, that's true of most things."

Minoth would nod, observe the shimmer of stardusted violet particles on Brighid's forehead and over her cheeks, and tear back the most recent paragraph of narration.

It didn't suit her. Bolder, it would have to be. She wasn't just a subject, she was a muse. Even he wasn't stupid enough to call her his muse.

"But I'm sure you could make any costuming work regardless, Maestro?"

He'd keep his mouth shut. No need to stutter. Better to say no line at all than a botched one. Everybody knew that.

She'd get up to leave. He'd make a crack about it being so soon, about the light source, the lamp of his inspiration, disappearing along with the sun, but she'd let him kiss the back of her hand, wondering what it was about her that made him so pathetic, or at the very least act so, and still her strut to be a little less harsh than the posing playwright probably deserved.

And where did she go, when she left? In the kitchen would be Flora, post-grateful acceptance of the latest spoils from Jin's ragtag adventures, whimsically transforming them into whatever it was they might call dinner that night, while whatever assortment of lookers-on held said babies and made conversation and enjoyed this odd yet wonderfully neutral dosage of what one might call a family life.

Brighid would dress the salad, maybe, lending her keen senses of sight and smell to selecting and picking (the same actions? differentiable ones?) just the right herbs, and Flora, still ever so slightly overwhelmed by the sudden influx of people, people, people, would lean happily on her arm to say thanks before whipping back around to address Milton's question, or Haze's, or Hugo's, come up from the basement a little earlier than Addam, owing to his considerably more, well, considerable share of fastidiousness at washing up and checking out.

The trouble was, Minoth didn't actually know that any of this was going on. He, like the layabout he found it so easy to be, stayed down in the library until just the last possible second before arriving to dinner as if just so serendipitously inclined for that very moment - sure, he helped clean up, but that was after the leading ladies (the both of them!) had drifted outside to sit on the roof and watch the sunset.

The punch line is exceedingly, perhaps almost disappointingly simple: on weekends, they had only two meals, a late breakfast and an early dinner, the latter of which was very often preceded by suitable leftovers from the former, which was justified by something vague about food being the food of love for the entire group at large, and so...

"Love?"

Brighid looked up, silently; Minoth called back a not-at-all-timid (far-too-bold), "Yes, Flora?"

And now the braided head appeared in the threshold. "Not you, silly." The head turned (several did, in fact): "Brighid, there's some spare Steel Salmon rolls on the counter, I just wanted to let you know before Jin snags them all."

Well...sure. Nothing too out of the ordinary at that. He had definitely more closely expected a question being directed at him (perhaps what did he want for dinner, even though that was a fruitless ask because he always favored soup, soup, soup), but fine. Sure. Flora was just that warm in aura. Always had been, always would be, unless something had arisen to truly threaten her role.

Still, setting notebook aside, Minoth made to lean his elbow on the table that stood between and in front of his chair and Brighid's, and then prop his chin on his hand and steal several furtive glances back and forth between the two women.

The rhythm was off. The twist was on. The stew was out. The thick of it was in. The next line would be...?

"That's kind of you, Flora. Yes, I'll be right up." True to her word, Brighid had also set journal aside, carefully closed with a smart-looking royal blue bookmark laid between her pages of interest. Again, Minoth didn't mind it.

What he did mind was the semantic choice one lady had made when addressing another of, presumably, higher rank - Brighid had almost always referred to Addam as Master, and even Lora as Lady, and though the few times Minoth could rememeber observing the two of them interacting were characterized by a wealth of background noise and chatter, he seemed to recall the words "Lady Origo" being customary for Brighid to utter.

So this? It was meaningful. It was certainly not damning, because who gave a damn about it, but it was...was it shocking? Was it scandalous? Everyone knew Addam and Flora both spent approximately a null fraction of their time worrying about accusations of infidelity when they'd gotten married for politics' sake anyway.

No. It wasn't scandalous. But it wasn't sensible either.

Up Brighid went, sturdy yet elegant on her heels, and the other end of the table all but flew up into Minoth's face, trio of feet under single leg scurrying quite neatly out of the way in facilitation. Neither of the women, of course, noticed. Neither so much as looked back in his direction.

This time, though, Minoth followed after them in short order, hardly even bothering with stray measures of dignity, but became no further elucidated on the ridiculous mystery until he'd take a surreptitious seat halfway across the kitchen, ready once again to watch.

One was tall, for a woman, and the other was short, for anybody but not necessarily especially for a woman. Okay. Not much to go off of there. One felt an affinity for the icy elements, poor circulation and cool hands and all, and one was quite literally on fire. Both wore dresses with slits and ruffled trim, both kept their hair in some form of a two-sided half-up half-down style, both were ladies, ladies, ladies...

Only when Minoth had embarrassed himself to the point of studiously watching Brighid eat a piece of off-color fish, with the hand whose attached arm was not already hooked - intertwined - with Flora's, did he realize the missing piece of the puzzle.

Brighid, apparently, wrinkled her nose like that only when she was quite summarily displeased with something, while Flora wrinkled her nose when she was happy, when she was cheered, when she was charmed, when she was anything but consternated - for that region of emotion, she reserved a frown.

Yes, Minoth knew all this, probably had known all of it for quite some time, as when he wasn't so embarrassingly off his game he was certainly at least as observant as the next man. But watching the two paired together, similarities and differences on display in equal measure, indeed, he saw the simple, wounding fact:

He'd been reading Brighid's looks of assumed reciprocation wrong the entire time.