heroism's only just another -'ism', after all
What's a person, anyway? What they like, what they don't like, where they came from and where they're going. You can only be so different, so distinct, right?
The decisions you make and the heritage you have can only matter so much. Right?
So Addam had thought, when he was only eighteen, and only wrangling the precarious - none so precocious - perceptions of a precious few into some semblance of sensible framework within his mind.
Is it more complicated? Maybe it is. Or maybe, because of the reductive views with and within which people generally regard the world, it's more simple. At once, either is better, and either is worse.
Amalthus was a man who put a lot of stock in decisions and heritage, and then again who didn't. He regarded Addam coolly, as ever, when it became down to him to accept the responsibility of driving Mythra.
"Ah. A hero, from the noble auspices of Torna. I couldn't have picked it better myself."
And I just bet you did, Addam thought and nearly said under his breath, but didn't. You sinister, sinister man.
"I hope I'll live up to your expectations, noble Quaestor." Only up, and not down; I won't stoop, if that's what you want.
"But of course," Amalthus replied, somehow simultaneously subtly and unsubtly inspecting his fingernails. "Everyone loves a hero. You know that we're all behind you."
Hiding behind me, as sneak-thieves do. But Addam was magnanimous, as heroes are, so he made no comment.
Not as they do, you see, only as they are. Indeed.
"Don't forget who you are, Addam. What you are, rather."
The word "bastard" was, technically, an impolite one. Caitiff served well enough, and Zettar liked to use it often - as often as he could. But the bite of his snakelike tongue still flirted with a curse on Addam's head, each time he spoke it.
So then, in the throne room with the crucial resonation and awakening scheduled to occur at a ceremony within the next few weeks, Addam could just hear the more offensive word boiling on Zettar's tongue, practically jumping in its haste to get off and out.
Zettar's siblings never said much, either for or against him. Chaghan was fearful and so often pale-faced in his baseless shame, and Ashigu was clever and conniving but somehow always, always, always proved herself useless. At least, when Addam could see them. Like as not, they said all manner of things about him, behind closed doors.
Still, they watched him with steely blue eyes, flanking their brother at the conference table.
Don't forget what I am - but what are you? You're as much bastards in relation to the throne and his birthright as he is. And so I don't care. So I don't have anything against you.
"I don't plan to," said Addam. Zettar scowled, and the three of them rose and swept away.
"I had always hoped my son would be a hero. Would save us from all the petty evils that plague our home, even now."
"I-" I am not worthy of that responsibility, Lord. Father. You know I do not want it. You hardly want it yourself.
Khanoro inclined his head ever so slightly to the side, and the lock of hair which Addam's was kept tied to match swayed gently. Tellingly.
"Desire you not the glory of being ever more true to Torna? Of giving your life for our noble golden land?"
To die for a cause that was only whole when all were alive and thriving together seemed folly to Addam. How could it be worthwhile for a leader to throw himself before fire, only to be extinguished himself? To plan to, rather?
"In truth, my lord, I do not." And I had thought that you knew that.
A grim smile crossed the stony features. It was a sick sight, and Addam felt in some subconscious impulse that his father knew it so. This, if not that. They had a common understanding, somewhere beneath the armor and airs. Somehow, at the heart of it, father understood son understood father.
"Indeed, Addam. And that is what will save us all."
"So you're to be a hero, are you?" That word again. Altansarnai emphasized the 'e', the highest and weakest portion of the pronounciation.
The king had left the room, just as likely because he did not wish to disturb the queen as because she would never deign to share the throne room with him again, even in base logistic necessity, after the divorce.
She was a strong woman; she always had been. There were not only petty things afloat in her head, uncrowned but still with a braid making crowning circlet atop her thick, dark head of hair. And still, she sneered through her estimation of Addam's future. Every man, woman, and child must have their pride. The golden rose, disgraced from the highest Tornan tier, kept her airs in another way.
Addam bowed his head, again as much in respect and deference as in fear of continuing to look upon the former queen's face. "Your Highness," he began, because even before Flora, Altansarnai had rankled at the idea of being called something so simple as a "lady", "I only do what my fa- the king and Quaestor Amalthus have bid me do. I indulge in no status above my station."
He was missing the fancy words, the eloquent diction that his father always maintained, even as the richest of his vocabulary always proved to flow in moments of supplication. It wouldn't serve him either way; Altansarnai could mark equal affront from overcolloquialism or oversophistication, from excess frankness or excess frippery. No indulgence, indeed.
"Your father," the queen returned, spitting both Addam's opening epithet and his accidental emission (and perhaps also an omission of which he was unaware) back at him, "places far too much trust in you. A bastard girl-child from an offshore territory has little of value to bring to us. That he should accept you as you are, as you present yourself, is only proof of his foolish sentimentality."
That sentimentality, among all of the complication and resentment that lurked within Aureus, was one of the few things Addam knew he could count on and admire about his father. He wanted it for himself, in truth. So on the inside, while the intention was derogatory, upon both not-so-royal heads, Addam found himself smiling quite wide.
On the outside, however, he gave not a single cue in face's façade. For a brief moment, Altansarnai eyed, appraised, his armor. What did it portend? Nothing Addam could know, at least not as far as she would ultimately perceive.
"Do not fail."
What did her words mean? As the fallen queen, they meant little; she had just as much of a lack of power as he apparently did. But as another person, another citizen of Torna, another human under the Architect's and Titans' gaze...they were a fervent wish for something like faith.
Addam nodded. "This I promise you, my queen."
"So you're my big strong hero now?" Flora teased, ducking her nose into the bouquet Addam had brought her along with the news.
"Wasn't I always?" Addam asked, feeling a little faint at the idea.
She laughed, leaned in to his chest. "Of course you were. This just confirms it."
It confirms a lot of things, doesn't it?
With his arm wrapped distractedly around Flora's waist, Addam considered...oh, quite a many things.
"When it's over...promise me you won't tease me too much, about that?"
Flora laughed again. "Promise? I can't promise anything! Not anything so silly as that."
Oh, Flora... Addam held her away from himself, looked directly into her eyes. "Do you promise?"
The beautiful blue eyes fell. "Oh, Addam...yes, I promise."
To me. To the man whom you know, better than anyone, would rather just sit at home in the sun with you.
Oh, Flora. I hope I believe you.
"So you're the hero?"
All manner of parts of Mythra stuck out at odd angles; her hips, her eyebrows, her elbows, the flags that flapped uncertainly at her waist. She betrayed her inherent symmetry at every glance. Maybe, Addam thought, maybe I could do that.
"I think that's you," he offered blithely back. "How do you feel about that?"
Mythra popped her lips together, once, twice, thrice. "Lame. I'll let you know if it suits you."
Titan's foot, Addam thought, and if she thinks so that will truly seal it. And so any time the subject came up, with her or Milton or anyone else, he made sure to shut it down as soon as possible. Avoidance will win the day, sometimes.
"You can't be THE Addam Origo?!" And then Jin named all his credentials, to make Lora's embarrassing incredulation even worse.
Even to the remotest citizens of their land, he was known. Not only a last name did he get, but titles upon titles to go with it. He could play his goofiest, his most jovial, his most friendly and wouldn't-hurt-a-fly, and yet still his status, the very fact of hero, hero, hero, did him into a stoicness that he had never wanted and would never exemplify.
He cried at her "sad, sad" tale, and laughed at all the funniest bits, and acted just as down-to-earth as he could imagine any one man could be, and then Lora still turned to him and asked if he was planning to wrest Jin - a person, not a trinket, you fool, fool, fool - from her side.
Is that what heroes do? Do they hurt people, because they're blinded by their own prejudices? Because they are, in some ways, simply afraid of their own duty?
"You know, I could tell a lotta great stories about you, Prince."
"Because you love me so much personally, or because I'm such a great subject?"
"No, you clown, because you're a hero. Right? People eat that up."
"And is that what you believe?"
"Me? Nah. I just believe in you. Maybe a little too much, but I do."
"I'm...very grateful for you, Minoth."
"As they say...likewise, my prince."
"This place looks homey," Pyra said quietly, looking back upon the shore. Upon the last place she would ever have walked, before the ship that was to be her tomb sank into the dull, listless Leftherian currents. "A good place for a hero to rest."
Hero's Rest...it had a ring to it, to be sure. It was...well, nice to joke about it. But Addam would rather they didn't.
Addam would have rather had a lot of things go differently than they did. Perhaps power didn't just lend him that air of capability. Perhaps it was the culpability to go with it, too.
"I'm no hero, M- ah, Pyra. Just a man far too many people trusted."
And empires have been built, have been won, have been toppled, on and for far less than that.