Get Along, Kid Charlemagne

I, your ever-cherished narrator, really can't think of any better way to step into this vignette than to explain it thusly: one Blade may say to another, you know what it's like to be a Flesh Eater? That Blade, of course, will be one who knows edgewise of a certain ritual, and is intimately interested in its implications, though he is, rationally, somewhat daunted by the partial failure thereof in his example, but the other Blade will nevertheless reply, smartly and succinctly, sure I do. Wanna kiss about it?

Well, okay. It would go more like this...

On the steps of Hyber, the first or second night of their stay (mark one day's after the Jagron resting along Olnard's Trail, and then perhaps another in the village itself, for good measure), Jin and Minoth stood by the log cabin's outer wall and made the initial of what was to be not many, exactly, but certainly a handful of relational conversations about Drivers, good friends, good food, and good memories.

"So...how is that, for you?" Simultaneously a blunt and vague opener, so that was neither a credit nor a debit against Jin's meritorious account.

But, Minoth, the wisest of them all, parsed it nonetheless, and provided his answer with perfect equanimity. "Hey now, I put my pants on one leg at a time, same as any other Blade."

At that, Jin couldn't help but smile. "I wouldn't have pegged you for one to level yourself to others so easily, Minoth."

"Well. I'm no Paragon." And what is a paragon, anyway? The epitome of its kind, beyond measure or even compare - really, which of those is superlative remains to be seen. The point is, if you're a paragon, then you're different. Something about you...unique, beyond even, for example, a Rare Blade.

So Jin studied Minoth. No Paragon, huh? Then how come you're so tall, how come your armor doesn't look like any I've ever, ever seen - not that I've seen all that much, out in the wilds, but I mark myself perceptive just as much as Lora does herself intrepid.

(So I'm allowed to be oblivious, sometimes. No one said the Paragon was perfect, right? Right?)

How come I think you're so handsome, Minoth?

"But you are a Flesh Eater," Jin prodded eventually. Surely Minoth must have known that was what he was driving at in his coy questioning. What else could I have been invoking? The assless chaps?

...not that I don't wonder about those. In fact, most Blades don't actually put their pants on one leg at a time, for those of them who even don the standard vestment, but there was Minoth with two separate sleeves. Found the symbolism, have you, Jin?

"I'm a Flesh Eater," repeated Minoth, in a tone not quite approximating that which he had given to Lora when she'd asked about it, about the misshapen, discolored state of his Core.

His Core...

And then Jin was staring. Arms crossed, hands secure, boots stable, he began to lean from the top down, from his own Core pinpointed, towards the center of Minoth's chest.

"Something caught your eye?"

"O-oh. No, I..." Snapped straight up just as tongue-tied as he'd been with the Lora and the journal. So you're hiding something. You are, don't deny it. Don't hide it.

Much like Lora had been, Minoth was smug with his catch, almost catlike. But where Lora had been a curious kitten nosing around its mother (father? whatever holds for the simile best), Minoth had intent in his gaze.

"Go on, you can touch it. I don't mind." Oh, and now Jin's eyes must have been shot wide open. Not only was he unused to being toyed with, flirted with, in this way, it was practically unheard of for Blades to just invite others to...to cop a feel on their Cores.

Just like any other Blade, indeed. You're special, and you know it.

Jin put a cautious hand out, bare-fingered, to touch the roughly diamond-shaped stone-not-stone, just as permitted (advised? requested? because surely the other man wouldn't have said this if "not minding" was all there was to it), and then he stood there for several awkward seconds, unsure of what to do next.

It didn't feel any different from his own Core, it was true. Well, not totally. Every Blade's ether signature is different, is unique. There was really no point in comparing any to any other, or elevating one a false god-king among servants. No point in considering any one disposable for experimentation, either. Huh.

Minoth's Core was warmer than Jin's own, as any other Blade's would be, considering that no other Blades' powers came close to the sheer absolution of his ice, and because practically every other Blade in existence had their Core mounted on their chest, from where a much greater quantity of body heat routinely emanated (you can only fit so much ether circulation in your cranium, Paragon or not).

The longer he lingered, however, the warmer it got. As Minoth would say, that's affinity for you. Well, he'd say it as a "ya" but...but Jin was far stiffer than that. Time to loosen up, perhaps?

That was what Minoth seemed to be thinking, anyway. "Pardon me if this is a bit lewd-minded, but..." Making a somewhat conciliatory smile to go with a gentle lift of his chin, he gestured up at Jin's forehead. "Show me yours, since I showed you mine?"

Showed you? You didn't show me anything, the damn thing's on display all the time. No telling how he kept it if he wasn't among friends - of course, Jin knew that much, quite intimately - but still, they were practically strangers, so that would do it, wouldn't it?

Before Jin could brush his own bangs aside to bare the pristine blue crystal, Minoth had reached a careful hand up to do so, and leant his knuckles against the highest point of the kited diamond.

"Amazing. I've never seen a Blade with a Core Crystal so small, and in such a strange place."

He murmured it mostly to himself, but they were standing so close that it wasn't as if Jin wouldn't have heard. No clearing of his throat nor shuffling of his feet did he do, however. He merely stood his ground, shifted his thumb to rest on top of the very same peak of Minoth's Core, and studied him again. Eyes-first, ice-blue to ether-blue.

A mild rustling, more a clanking, came from behind them. Something up, Aegaeon?

"Would you care to discuss this again another time, Jin?"

Minoth didn't wink, because he wasn't a womanizer (again with the awkward traditionally feminine terminology, but surely you must understand what I mean, particularly in context), and indeed he seemed to get a bit flustered himself, but he didn't exactly hold back, either. He was definitely coaching up his confidence as he cupped the side of Jin's face, ran a gloved thumb over the crest of his cheekbone, but after all...we're all only human, aren't we?

No we're not. And isn't that just the thing!

What was that artful epithet the dashing cowboy shouted most often during battle? "Let's try it my way!" Was that it?

Of all the things that made Jin unsure as they moved forward in their quest to beat back Malos's fiendish advances, this one carried perhaps the least in nerve-inducing magnitude.

"Sure. Let's try it your way, Minoth."