I Think Not!
Chapters
Chapter 01: My Watch
Chapter 02: In There?
Chapter 03: Easy Does It
Chapter 04: A Poor Attempt
Chapter 05: Following Through
Chapter 06: The Way To Do
Chapter 07: Losing Focus
Chapter 08: Half Measures
Chapter 09: Whatever
Minoth had never wanted to escape being a Blade; the fact of his existence as a being who could and had been wholly controlled and manipulated by another. He never wished that he'd been born another way, or even necessarily that Blades weren't so receptive to impulse and intention as all that.
He just wished there weren't men like Amalthus in the world to perpetrate it.
So when Amalthus, it appeared, had failed to awaken one of his twin plunderances from the World Tree by the normal means, Minoth took it upon himself to make sure he never would, by any means.
However unfortunately, that entailed Malos latching onto him, instead.
Getting Malos to abscond to Torna with him had been easy. Getting Malos to engage in sharp-hearted banter had been somewhat easier, somewhat more difficult. Getting Flora to agree to host, for the forseeable future, not one but two lumbering Dark Blades express-posted from Indol had been hardly a blip.
No, Minoth's tallest task was settling with Malos on who he was and they were - and who, or what, the other Core had to say about it.
"You know so much, without so much as breathing in the direction of any of it."
Malos shrugged. "Blades aren't born, they're made. Especially the Master Blade."
Sounded about right. Take Minoth, for example.
"So, how you feeling, one week on?"
Pretty no-strings-attached, wasn't it? Ship out fast, take a nap on a farm, cozy up to to the closest thing you have to a soulmate, beyond your "sister". Minoth knew he'd been squeezing the pace, but as long as he kept a leisurely check-in, no harm done, right?
Though Malos didn't have the capacity to look harried, he came close. "He might be getting to me after all."
"How so?"
But soon enough, Minoth experienced it for himself. Amalthus's despair, hopeless disdain, coursing through from one end of his skull to the other.
"Hold tight, Malos... Looks like his sphere of influence spins hard."
While Minoth had focused singularly on all that Malos was, he couldn't deny that being in Aletta without Addam was doing numbers on his addled Flesh-Eater head. It took some doing, once the prince returned, but he reconciled the two (now four), through fumbled theatrics and just enough wit to spear Malos through his annoyance.
It was all going capitally, until Addam put his foot in it and mused that if a Blade, so freshly awakened, was truly struggling so mightily at the distant hands of his Driver, might it not be in everyone's best interest to simply return him to his Core?
All things being equal, of course.
As if.
The worst part about Addam's Titan-sized faux pas was that Minoth didn't even have it in him to be surprised. That was just how humans thought, wasn't it? Blades, so mysterious and yet so everpresent, could be popped in and out of corporeality at will. It didn't matter, to them. Malos hadn't seen anything here that he wouldn't see again.
But Minoth, as Blade and Driver both, was particularly hooked on Malos's life as it stood. No mulligans, no johns.
Every mistake Minoth made, he'd carry forward, mediating as he went. If Malos could make better, so could he.
This Malos was the one that would change him. Change them all.
And then there was Mythra. To Flora, they'd decided (rather, Minoth had decreed, and she'd convinced the rest), and considering how the roster currently stood, with Addam and Minoth barely holding together the tatters of a bond-long trust, none should argue. Milton had lost a touch of his initial peerless adoration for Addam, and watched cagily to see what yet another personality would add to the mix.
She arrived in a column of divinity, taller than Flora but seeming nearly as statuesque as her brother.
When that partner introduced himself, her eyes flashed.
Truth, she argued, but he fought back with justice, with spirit.
Logos became Malos. Amalthus was going down.
Was it perhaps more just to snuff out the source of the problem, than the symptom? To exact vengeance on exactly one human, for centuries of abuse heaped upon Blades? Or was it equally as callous?
Their purpose was plain, if not their course: square with Amalthus and rid Malos's Core of the corruption that prevented him from operating as freely, as cleanly, as Mythra did. She was so quick, so incisive. He was, too, but distracted, somewhat, and Minoth kept him mired with mental illness galore.
How to get to Indol, anyway? Cloaked? As merchants?
Mythra, marginally less conspicious in Tornan commoner dress, led the charge.
To rights. To freedom.
"If the Master Blade is a rogue, I hardly think it's my fault. See how willfully the woman acts."
Mythra sniffed. If Malos was a misogynist, it was the least of their problems, but see how ickily the source acts.
Minoth had admitted to taking the Cores. One would expect Amalthus to claim them rightful property of Indol, but he didn't.
So Malos moved. "You don't want me on your head, do you?"
As Amalthus was about to retort, Addam entered the chamber, Flora just behind comforting a malnourished Esthamite child clutching and clawing at his own sternum.
"I think there are quite a few things this Quaestor doesn't want known."
It fell to Mythra to repair Malos's Core manually, picking through data to determine what belonged, what needed ousting, and what should remain despite its ill origin.
She knew her job was done when Malos hitched a breath, stared up at her, and uttered the word "Pneuma."
Mythra bit her lip, teared, but nodded. There was no going back.
Malos, disoriented, could only all but sob in Minoth's arms. In a humans' week and a half, he'd been instaneously conditioned by degrees, reeducated on allosexuality and romanticism, reunited with his counterpart, and practically completed the cycle of death and rebirth.
Was this the intended path?
Probably not, but the road continued.