hello, i'm crazy (hi crazy, i'm dad)

yesirree

"You know..." Feeble hook. Addam let it linger in the air, cheeks squished mutely into palms as he leant over the table.

Minoth didn't look up. It wasn't odd for the wooden house, more like a log cabin than anything else and certainly more like a rustic settlement than whatever Aletta had been, to echo with these plaintive, leading questions. There wasn't much else that would echo, otherwise. No history here, just emptiness. "Know what, Prince?"

"It's been a few years, since the war."

Keep writing. Nothing out of the ordinary. "Sure it has. You feeling okay?"

"Not really," Addam admitted. "I'm still rather...confounded, about the whole thing."

"Ha. Yeah. For all the loose ends it tied up, it didn't really explain anything." Not that Minoth would ever consider killing characters off to be a satisfactory knot on a fray, but it was almost painfully true.

Hugo, Brighid and Aegaeon were gone. Dead? Gone. The Emperor's older brother, Domnhall, was ruling for the foreseeable future, as there were no other heirs in the extended Ardanach family to call upon. Lora, Jin and Haze had also disappeared without a trace, most likely taking Mikhail with them, so there he was matched to Milton once again. Amalthus was installed as Praetor, with both Baltrich and Rhadallis cast aside, and Stannif's laboratories seemed to be laying quiet. The king was dead, and again Zettar was aloof.

Aloof. Mythra was gone. Oh, Mythra, Pyra, whoever. And Malos was as dead as a Blade ever could be. If, that is, the same rules applied to an Aegis. Minoth, for whom none of the same rules hardly ever applied anymore, chose to believe it. Malos was dead. Their Aegis was as good as. So it was over.

In the house, in the stale, stifling house, Addam ran an idle finger over the deckle edges of the open notebook opposite from where Minoth's pen concentrated; hand-bound, they weren't likely to leave a papercut, but it was playing with danger all the same. Still, Minoth let him.

"Aren't you curious?" Ah. So perhaps he shouldn't have done that.

Down set the pen, and Minoth leaned back in his chair, but didn't tip up onto the back legs. Too precarious, that. By this point, anyway. "About what? What would have happened if what we'd done could have been called anything closer to winning?"

Now he glanced past Addam to where Evie was sat, more plopped, cross-legged, on the floor, silently arranging wooden blocks into the rough shape of a house. There was no one inside. "I guess you could say so. I wonder what that kid would say to us if she felt like talking."

Evelyn the Wise. Silly epithet, but the first one that had come to him when it had turned out that the child wasn't male and wasn't to be named Alexander Hugo, after all. Like as not, she'd live up to it, and already did every day. But no matter how much louder actions might have spoken than words, it was still so precious hard to tell what lurked in her toddler-sized head, tucked safely away beneath the dark brown locks.

Quiet child. But her silence was different. Different from Mikhail's reticence, which he chose - agh, had chosen - only summarily, and different from Milton's obvious and unavoidable lifeless muteness. A different weight to the breath.

"I wonder if Mik would have smiled when he saw her. I wonder if he and Milton would have fought over who got to hold her. I wonder if Lora would have finally gotten to fulfill her dream of caring for young people who'd had it just as hard as her - which is to say, not Evie, because things wouldn't have been this way. I wonder if the rest of them, the rest of us, would have gotten to greet life for once, instead of the death we've all been chased with for all of our lives."

Lora's mother, Addam's mother, Hugo's father, Milton's parents, Mikhail's surrogates thereof. The entire continent of Coeia, and the baby in that house ransacked even before Malos's scourge. Hugo's relationship with his brother, if not also his father, and Addam's with his uncle, so surely also his father, both gutted by jealousy from weaker men.

And Minoth, who'd only ever watched as an onlooker as the world burned and Amalthus cheered bloodlessly for it. Don't say that he'd only ever been able to do as much. Doubtless, there had been so much more he could have done. But Amalthus had wanted things this way. Did want them exactly as he'd planned. Oh, Minoth could see that so clearly now.

We were not so strong. We were all misfits, and none served in our determination for it. Cowards both, Addam and Lora, even for all that they seemed to face the world head-on. Jin and Haze, pacifists, and Mythra and Minoth, too directionless and lacking of their own grounded morals, made no scions where Brighid and Aegaeon, behind Hugo, merely marched.

We let this happen. Words stolen off of lips, life stolen out of hands and hearts. Not that there'd been so much holding done.

So no. I'm not curious. If I thought about it any harder I would walk straight out that door and into the Cloud Sea. Worse, I'd stab myself. When my Core Crystal leaves my body and falls forever dormant, my spirit will still curse the ground that it sullies. My anger is that penetrative, and it is that useless.

"I didn't...mean that," stuttered Addam weakly. Too weakly. You're a shell, my prince. You know it. I know it. But I don't want to think about it.

The wayward finger worried at the corner of the topmost page, again, waffling on whether or not to turn it over.

"Why did Malos act the way he did? Why was Mythra not so self-assured? Why did the Architect send us...them?"

Whisper-quiet, movements tense, Minoth drew the notebook closer towards him, out from under Addam's portentous hand. Close the book, and gracefully decline.

"I don't know, Addam." Each word he chewed. They all tasted disgusting. "And let me make this clear to you - are you paying attention?"

Not that he particularly wanted the contact. But Addam looked. Every line on his face - forehead, cheeks, mandibles alike - sagged.

"I don't want to know. Not from you, not from Amalthus, not from anyone. I don't want to hear another thing about the Architect's will for as long as I live."

Something stuttered into the air, likely emitting from the vague vicinity of Addam's mouth. Minoth ignored it, staved it, batted back with a caveat. "Now, that may be quite a while. So I certainly hope you'll do me the favor of stowing it for as long as your sorry ass happens to be walking."

Unspoken: Or I'll be walking out that door and I will not be looking back. I looked back at Indol. I will not look back at you.

"But Minoth..."

"What." In his head, Minoth scrawled out the dialogue. He hated putting periods on questions, but this one was just that flat. What.

"Doesn't it eat away at you? How can you possibly deal with it? Everyone we know is dead!"

So mum-keeping is a silent killer. "Everyone we know is dead," repeated Minoth. "Thanks for reading my mind."

Addam began to look fervent, now. "And, and before I die, I'd at least like to know! To have tried! I'm tired of being a coward."

"Oh really?" Keep the tones low. Keep the mood steady. Keep it dark.

But where Minoth was dry, Addam's building panic was far too wet and palpable. "We know the Architect's domain is in the World Tree. We know there are answers up there - there have been before, and I-"

Minoth had been in far too many bar fights for this one to be alien, but the muscle memory of it all still kept everything fresh and real. He stood and kicked back the chair in one motion, notebook swept to the side in a place protected from all potential impacts, and then his hands grasped at the collar of Addam's linen shirt (a farmer, a farmer, I should be so grateful that you're not pretending a warrior anymore) and shoved the prince up against the bookcase behind the table.

"What did I just tell you?" Oh, the apoplexy threatened. It was just...just there in his throat, under the brim of the collar of the jacket that he still wore, even if it was in an attempt to make familiar plainclothes. "I don't want to hear about it."

Though he didn't writhe in the offensive grip, Addam gulped. His first assassination attempt, rather. But the motivation was very far from political, was it not?

"And what did I just tell you? I am tired," and here he grasped at the back of Minoth's hand to divest it of his shirt, "of being a coward."

Neither hand budged. Both brows furrowed. The noses met, but oh, it was so far from being a meet-cute. "Addam..." Snarl. Bark. Growl. Be a menace, if you must. Isn't that what a Blade like you is made for? Literally, was made for?

"Oh, keep my name out of your mouth. You've done it for enough years, haven't you?"

From the words, the context of Addam's homed-in cadence, it sounded affable, almost like a joke, but there was a wretched, ugly cold in Addam's tone. Yes, menacing. In his shock, Minoth let himself be pushed back, chest first, nails scraping across the Core Crystal without hardly any care for where they touched, or where they didn't.

"I am not afraid of you, Minoth. I am no idiot, not like I know you like to believe. I will not be forced to stew in this misery because of your own willful complacence."

The threats were thrown, and the chests heaved. Still, time didn't move. No motion was enough. "Addam, you can't-"

"It's not even complacence, it's willful ignorance. You think that ignorance is bliss. And that's fine for you, I suppose, but for me it is hell. Do you hear me? It is HELL."

Hell. Hoping that the lord and their world were benevolent, and trusting in that, bending yourself to the blind faith because anything else was too painful. Then finding a new pain in being forced to stoop to the same conclusions as every other poor unfortunate soul, when you knew, thought you knew, that there was something more.

Minoth kept the guns under his bed, now. Never went anywhere with them, where before he'd never gone anywhere without them. A good thing, now, because the instinct was itching to pull one out, cock it, exert dominance over the situation. So he'd have to substitute.

The warrior monks knew martial arts to use upon indisposition of their staffs. Minoth had never learned much, not because he lacked patience for the craft but because he lacked patience for the master, but he did know how to pin someone down. In this case, it would have to be up.

Addam's hand was thrust out with a demonstrative point. It was easy, then, too easy (way, way, way too easy), to grab his wrist, twist the arm over sideways, and lock it together with the other before shoving the whole assembly back up against the bookcase. This time, when Minoth got up into Addam's face, it was with hot breath and seething brows.

"Did I not give you enough of the gory details? Did I not bare to you enough of what happened to me on that day?" My trauma? "Do you ever fucking listen to one SINGLE thing I SAY?"

Addam, the ever-attentive. Addam, the insensitive but well-meaning. Addam, the self-absorbed.

"I should have killed Amalthus on that cliff. I should have taken the baby from him and shoved him off into the Cloud Sea. If I had done that, all of Coeia and Torna and Spessia would still be standing. Lora and Jin and Haze and Mikhail and Milton and Hugo and Brighid and Aegaeon would all still be alive. Mythra and Malos would never have been awakened, but they're dead now anyway, so I'm really not sure if that means all that fucking much."

No, Minoth wasn't holding the knife. But he could twist it.

"Flora would be alive right now. If I hadn't been such a coward on that day."

Again, it was with a sudden bang, a pop of pressure in the ears, that they both realized how heavy they were breathing. Again, there was fear in Addam's eyes, but it was wilder than it had ever been. More like Minoth's than it had ever been.

He'd long abandoned chewing his words. And yet, the lumps in their throats made it nigh impossible to swallow. Bit off. Chomping at the bit to off yourself, are you?

"That...that wasn't your fault. You can't possibly blame this entire thing on yourself."

"Then you can't blame me for stopping you going up to Elysium either." Something autonomous brought Minoth's knee up to press against Addam's thigh, and the tendons in both were tense as death.

"Oh, yes the fuck I can."

Curse at me, will you? We can both do many, many things. There are myriad ways for a story to be written, a tale to be told. Do you enjoy dabbling in the macabre? In the damned, in the devilish, in the divine?

Curse me. No, curse you. For I am already cursed.

"Do you want me to kill you, Addam?" The threat was conversational, liquid. It was absolutely pleasant and delightful and then again it was absolutely fucking vile. "Do you want to kill me? How about let's both of us end this right now, hmm?"

"Minoth, stop." The plaintiveness was back. Minoth pressed his forehead to Addam's and breathed in. Closed his eyes. Didn't even try to ground himself.

Is this how you'll die? With your Driver, in this most sick and twisted sense? Alone, without family or friends, not in war but because of it?

(And so Addam is not a friend, anymore.)

"Minoth, please. You're scaring me."

You're scaring me. The eyes snapped open, and their cores were all of ether fire.

"I never thought you would turn into Amalthus, Addam. I never thought that you'd become as pathetic a man as he was - as he still is, because I let him roam free. And you knew that, didn't you? You used to know me. You used to know me because I LET you know me AND I TRUSTED YOU!"

Addam whimpered. Head shied to the side, like a kicked dog, he whimpered. If Minoth didn't know better, he'd think the prince was about to start crying outright. But Addam wasn't quite that pathetic. He never had been.

"Don't you make that noise at me. Don't you ply at pity. Look at me, Addam. LOOK AT ME!"

Again, Addam looked, but he was still scared. It wasn't the same as before. He was not in control. And there was nothing Addam Origo liked less than not being in control, when it mattered. And this fucking mattered.

"This world is not fair. This world is not ever GOING to be fair. Not as long as Amalthus and men like him are in power, and MAYBE NOT EVER. You were not good enough for Mythra. I wanted to believe that you were so good, that it wasn't your fault, that she was too tough to deal with, but you know what, my prince? I think it's on you. I think it's YOUR fault."

"Minoth..." Now he was crying. "Minoth, what do you want from me?"

The continued grip on Addam's wrists, pinning them above his head, was far too disconnected for Minoth's theatric, semantic, logistic, and, frankly, emotional tastes, right about now. That was merely a fleeting passing thought, of course, and we can slow down here to observe it but in that house in Leftheria the mood was all too critically tight.

"I want safety. I want love. I want to not have to think about what happened in the past. You always said that didn't define me. I think you were wrong. But anyway. Really, I want to DIE, but I CAN'T die, I might NEVER die, so I just want you to let me live my fucking blissful ignorance life. IS THAT NOT FUCKING POSSIBLE?"

"Minoth, I-"

"Answer the question, Addam."

"I don't see wh-"

"ANSWER ME!"

"But I-"

"STOP IT!"

Minoth blinked. For the first time in what felt like several minutes, he blinked. Those words didn't come from Addam's mouth. Come to think of it, that voice wasn't Addam's.

"Evie?" That was Addam's voice. It sounded like he was barely breathing. Why wasn't Addam breathing?

Why is my knee about to thrust into Addam's groin? Why am I holding Addam hostage in his own home? Why does my Core feel like it's going to split in half?

Architect, what am I doing?

"Minoth, can you put my arms down?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I can do that."

"And can you put your right leg back down on the ground?"

"Consider it done."

"Now can you step back a bit?"

A bit. I can open the door and start running, you know. I can get as far away from you as you like. You ask for an inch, I'll give you a mile, my prince. I'll jump however high. I'll leave. I'll start today. I'll...no.

"Sure thing, Prince."

Evie, silent again, toddled forward along the recently cleared path, block in hand clattering to the floor, and wrapped herself around Addam's leg. Anything less exactly clear than a shout for peace, they wouldn't have heard it. Wouldn't have seen any visual cues, wouldn't have sensed anything off with or from her, so wrapped up in their own traumas were they. Not petty traumas, no, but selfish ones.

And she knew that. Evelyn the Wise, indeed.

"Evie, do you need anything?"

She shook her head, and it rustled as it was buried in the billows of Addam's pants.

"Minoth, do you need anything?"

"I...not if she doesn't." There was a fear in his mind that Evie would soon grow to be distrustful of him, if she hadn't already decided that instantaneously, but then she was nonverbal, not mute, and even if she was mute, she wasn't deaf. "Just to tell you that I'm sorry."

"Quite alright, old friend. I'm sorry too."

Minoth nodded, took in breaths and let them out.

He believed Addam. He believed in Addam. Still. Thank god.

"You know, it's been a few years, since the war. Are you feeling okay?"

This wasn't supposed to be half this dark, I promise. But it's cathartic, in a way. I hope.