In Your Eyes
"The town!" Lora gasped. The town? The city, the country, the nation, the people. All of it destroyed, in one fell swiping swoop.
(Disgusting. How can you? And then again, how can't you? Because if you can't, you know you will eventually. It's destiny, after all. Isn't it?)
Their eyes and mouths alike shot wide with shock and fear - Addam's born of the uncontrollable concern he felt for all those lives, dispatched with cruel, unfeeling immediacy, even expediency, and Minoth's of incredulation that Malos should really be able to ascend, to descend, to stoop to such a fervent, corrupt thing. That he should really have done just as his Driver had asked them to do, in erasing him from the face of the world.
And that was why, after some brief spare moments of woolgathering, Addam's expression set into anger, while Minoth's yet lingered on rarest empty-headed bewilderment.
They knew they'd have to fight. They knew they'd have to scrap for every last ounce of will and discipline to make it out of this fight with Malos, who seemed so wild and unrestrained but who was actually so calculating and efficiently vicious, alive and with every soul intact.
They never could have known it would have ended up like this.
Of course, the unconventional moods assigned to this partner or that didn't last for long. They never did.
"F-Flora," Addam got out between quivering lips, "she's-"
"She's alive, Prince," Minoth cut him off. "She's alive, and we're all gonna be alive to see her. And the baby. You hear me?"
No, he didn't. He didn't hear much of anything. Not that any of them could, over Mythra's ear-piercing scream, but the shocks being sent mercilessly through the prince's right arm by the expansion of the Aegis's unshackled sword certainly didn't help matters.
Minoth couldn't do a thing about it. There was nothing to do. It was just as Hugo said: a battle between the Aegises. Addam was unreachable, and Mythra was untouchable. Malos was a little bit of both.
So they watched, and they waited, as the rest of Torna fell full to ruin and Addam lay sprawled pathetically on the stone of the Soaring Rostrum, rendered for the cinema to his fullest extent of uselessness. When next they saw him summoned to action, it was with ceaseless tears falling over Hugo's stone-still body. Oh, the little emperor had always had perfect posture - whether reprimanded into it or not, he always would have. And so now, to see the respose one choiceless...indeed. Couldn't do a thing about it.
Still, it was Minoth who grasped Addam's shoulders and led him, forcefully but not unkindly, up the hurried gangplank of the evacuation ship. Indeed, the number of scavenged citizens already there was shocking, but there weren't many they recognized well. Some residents of Hyber, perhaps, but apparently none from Aletta - all those would be on a much less civilian-tuned vessel.
There was, however, and thank god above all gods, one familiar face. One face that couldn't be forgotten, wouldn't ever be forgotten, wouldn't ever be shunted away to the unseen corners of history. I would say, not if Minoth had anything to say about it, but, well. Well. Never you mind it.
Addam was torn, dreadfully torn, between duty to his Blade and duty to his wife, both caught in times of tremendous need, but in the end it was Minoth who dragged the prince after him, and then again before him, to at least get a grounding. A bearing. Some good news, amongst it all.
She was sat on a cot in the inner corner of the ship's front deck, plaits gaily arranged and hands laced as pleasantly as they could ever be across her stomach. How comported she looked, in such sharp contrast to the way Addam had been not twenty minutes earlier. But of course. Wasn't that always the way?
"Where's Mungo?"
"I sent him away," Flora answered, slightly distractedly and also seemingly slightly aware of her wantonness.
"Why?" asked Addam, just as distracted.
"Because I knew you would be here."
As if. Even she, the all-knowing far more than Malos ever was, couldn't have been so sure that they would have survived. She wasn't that willfully optimistic, ever. Indeed, she was their sharpest pragmatist, leveling higher than Minoth who came at the pessimistic end of the spectrum.
And let us indulge in that, shall we? In a different ending, the scenario would have been quite literally turned upside down. The blanket would have been on top of her, covering the nauseating tinge of double-dosed death, and instead of her hands holding theirs with the unspoken affirmation of all his months away, it would have been a completely silent, non-mutual grasp.
Yes, theirs. Somehow, without his knowing, Minoth had gotten wrapped up in the Origos' plaintive-platonic affair, and though it certainly wasn't as if he was going to complain...the feeling was odd. He shouldn't be so warm, right about now. No one should.
Then Addam left, satisfied to see the color flushing back into Flora's cheeks and dissatisfied to see that in Mythra's hair changing, and Minoth became the sole guardian. Guardian of what? Flora and the baby, yes, but what else? What else was there?
From stoic to sloppy, out came the emotions.
"It's all gone. Flora, it's all gone. Everything. The whole...everything."
"I know, love. I know. But it's alright. We are alive. So we'll just have to do what we can."
"But that's not..." There was no reaction equal to the moment, no path to amelioration anywhere in feasible sight. Minoth wanted to scrub his hands in front of his eyes, to tense up his cheeks and forcibly shake out the cruft in his brain, but his gloves were sooty and Flora was still holding them. Squeezing them. Hard.
"I wanted him to be wrong. I didn't want it to end this way. I thought we could change things."
"I thought you could too," came the gentle admission. "I believed in Addam, perhaps a little too much. I thought that all that was good in him could win the day. And, I thought that what he lacked in common sense you could certainly make up for - in my stead, even. But even I have to be wrong sometimes."
Everyone did. And yet, Amalthus hadn't been. The world was hell, Malos was the sponge to take in all its sins and wipe the slate clean, Minoth was a failure, the Architect cared not for any of their petty fates...
"Minoth." There was a jerk on his hands, and oh, that seemed to be a common theme, didn't it? Flora was the only who had ever, ever, ever dared to venture into his personal space with purpose towards care and improvement, as opposed to the way Addam just cast blindly at this or that intimate affection with no real thought put into its affect or its effect.
"I'm listening," he said. But he wasn't. What was there to say? It was all pain and suffering, and there was Torna sinking, and there was Mythra disappearing, and there was Milton dying, and surely none of this can be said to be good.
Jerk again. You jerk, you're not listening. "Sit down. Just sit here with me. Stop drilling through all those negative thoughts. It's like I said - and it IS like I said - we just have to do what we can, now. Addam will be completely lost to us if you don't stay afloat with me."
And just where did I walk into that responsibility? When did I go from wayward-woeful traveler to Addam Origo's keeper? Not so trite as that it was when I realized I was in love with the idiot prince. Stupid if I just call it that. Stupid if I let myself have happiness now.
But Minoth sat. Circled an arm around Flora's shoulders, rested his cheek on the top of her head, and let peace bring things still. The ship was sailing on to Gormott, he gathered from the tense whispers of the people closest to their fairly removed huddle. But Addam wouldn't stay in Gormott. Something about that place...too peaceful. Or rather, not too peaceful, but too normal.
Where would Addam go, now that Torna was gone? Probably, Minoth surmised, he'd go to Leftheria. It was where he had been born and quite possibly it was where he had been long prepared to die. And of course he'd never thought that he would die on the battlefield. No reason for it. Bless his heart if not his soul.
"Lady Origo." A soldier, not Vez, who spoke not to the pair of them but just to his charge, a member of the late Tornan royalty. "We've docked at Gormott. Will you need any assistance disembarking?"
"I..." Flora cocked her head, and Minoth was thankful that he'd already shifted his aside. "Minoth's right here - both Addam and I trust him absolutely. Seems rather odd that you'd ask me that right in front of his face, and ignore his being perfectly capable to help me with whatever it is you think you'd need to do."
Torna. Glorious Torna. Equality between Drivers and Blades, but not if the Blade could be passed over for brownie points, apparently. The soldier gulped. "Right. Of course. Won't happen again, Lady Origo."
Silly, silly lady. That she could strike such fear into his heart with just a few carefully-chosen words. Oh, she was lovely. Minoth stood, offered her his hand in a manner that was exactly angled to shove disdain in the soldier's face, and they made to leave the ship.
"Gormott's hilly," said Minoth, casually. "You sure you're not too shaken up from the whole..." You know, the everything being gone?
Flora looked up at him and sighed a tired smile. "Not too much, no. But you were thinking...what, exactly?"
"I could carry you," he offered sheepishly. Wouldn't do to have her going into labor before they got to whatever semblance of a final destination, after all. Well, but that meant...
"You're going to carry me over the threshold?" Teasing, teasing. "Don't quite know. Did Addam do that at Aletta?"
She nodded, lips quirked in the indication of a smile that she just couldn't hide.
"So then. It's my rightful place, isn't it? Gotta make up my part somehow." And oh, Minoth, you're really, truly in it now. Once Addam had bid adieu to Lora's squad, they made for a port in a shipyard up over the shoulder of the Titan - hilly indeed. Addam didn't comment on Flora's unorthodox mode of transportation, and neither did Pyra, but then Pyra didn't seem to be much for commenting on much of anything.
And not so poignant, was it, for Minoth to be the one to escort Flora into the house in Leftheria, when Addam wasn't with them, instead spiraling down into the Spirit Crucible with Pyra before sending her to sailless sea in the old bang-hulled ship. He came back in time for little Evie to be born, thank the heavens, and they sat all three - all four - holding hands once again.
"It's not fair," mused Addam softly.
"What's not?" Doesn't matter which of the others asked it.
"For us to be alive, when..." When it's all gone. The whole everything of it all.
"And do you think you can change that?" In fact it does. Minoth had asked, and Flora had answered - with a question, but still answered.
"I..."
"Look at me, Addam." Addam looked, and Minoth looked as well, just for the hell of it. Her eyes were blue, Tornan blue (and Evie's too, though it didn't prove itself out quite yet). Not everything was gone. Not unless they let it die.
"You may have failed, but you are not a failure. Not until you give up completely, and show that you've learned nothing from this, will Minoth be forced to write a play that damns your name. Don't you see? It's hard, I know that, but...but only when we forget Torna will Torna truly die."
An appealing sentiment, that. Especially when Minoth wouldn't forget for quite some time - as far as he had estimated, anyway. But wasn't that all it was?
"I was a teacher. I will teach again. You were a farmer. You will farm again. Minoth is a writer and he will never stop writing. It's only not fair if we become indolent in our gift of life."
Now Addam and Minoth themselves shared a glance. Oh, Flora... "How are you so wise?"
"Your father was wise. Once again, Minoth is wise. So...maybe it's all in the eyes."
All in the... "I think that's a no-go, darling," Minoth provided just so wisely. "Zettar's got them too."