circular breathing
Weird hunches. Putting aside all questions of posture, Minoth's an expert with weird, suspiciously spurious, tentatively incurious hunches. Addam'll take him at his word as easy as anything, in a group where he's already donned the mask of dispassion and faux-genteel gregariousness, so he's allowed to sit with his hunch and stay out of the palace, where Amalthus doubtless lies in wait.
It's not really any easier jiggling his heels on one side of Pischator Bridge, squinting at the old lady on the other side to see if she's taken notice, just waiting to hear what fresh creepery's being handed down from the high-and-mighty Quaestor on a dim day like today. Oh, and important news about Malos's movements, sure, official business and all that, but that's all normal, all parseable, all easily comprehended by the likes of Addam and Hugo, which is why they all went.
Yes, Minoth recognizes that it's the coward's way out, but regardless of whether or not his fears are founded, wouldn't it just waste time to distract from everyone else's important devoirs with the ill-fated reunion between undivine Driver and miscreant progeny?
It's practical, pragmatic. It's taking one for the team...sort of. It's what it is, and Minoth can draw his conclusions based on the testimony his teammates - truly? - will give, even if he can't render judgement on perceived microexpressions, and so on and so forth.
So Minoth waits, without the concentration necessary to do any writing, wax dramatic on the state of the city, wonder about how its inhabitants fare without their favored nobleman close by for the fawning. He keeps one eye back over his shoulder, through the gate and across the gardens, and he tells himself it's so he can make the proper entrance when the rest of the group sallies out of the palace, but the thought malingering that Amalthus may appear first is no subtle guest.
Helluva recoil. Obviously subtlety is not one of Minoth's constant suits.
Neither is it Lora's, though, so that's alright, then, eh?
No, Lady Lora swaggers out of Aureus, drops palms to kneecaps, and makes a big show of breathing like she apparently hadn't done the whole duration of the dreaded appointment. And Minoth, not having been present for the flagship incident, props brow and lays in.
"Guahhh, I can finally breathe!" she exclaims, looking to Jin for his stolid reaction and Haze for her righteous worry to see that all is as it should be. Addam and Hugo both look properly sympathetic, even if Brighid is a touch unimpressed, Mythra is doubtful, and Aegaeon remains inscrutable.
So Minoth's the one to make a crack: "What's wrong? You got asthma or something?"
Sue him, it's a great line, especially for an entrance. Lora's stink-eye might not like it, but then stink-eye isn't always the most cultured of gesticulations. That's simply not the type of Lady that Lora is.
Staying behind to redress an unpleasant interaction also isn't her way, but color Minoth pleasantly surprised that she seems to want to square up about it. Not completely pleasantly, but at least partially so.
"That really is awkward, isn't it?"
"Awkward, Lady Lora? You mince words."
You insult me to do so, actually, Minoth meant, but he couldn't say it, couldn't allow himself the arrogance. She was probably right; she knew more about people than he did. Didn't she? Had to. She actually liked them, unlike him.
(Liked them personally, and not in the abstract. Not as an impartial, impassive observer.)
No more than awkward. No question of safety, security, fear and defection - defection? detection. No word of a lie, no threat of a trap.
Amalthus would have to be crazy - outwardly so, not just funny in the head for private, inside audiences to see, which Minoth had and has done, many a time - to lay a hand on him here, to speak anything radical out of turn among the Tornan royalty, nobility and governors. Even just to ask him where it is he'd gone, for two years.
That's rational enough for anyone to understand, even setting aside notions of politics and appearances. It's rare for an abuser, such as the situation should state, to make a showing of their true machinations when they don't have their victim alone and invisible, within the private setting of the home.
Well. Rather harsh, isn't it? If not ideal.
Lora peers up at him, clearly quite peeved by the roundabout comment. "If it's not awkward, then what is it? And don't tell me you're above awkward."
No, he's not. He tries to be, tries to get around it, but the ums and ahs do get him eventually, it's true.
Minoth sighs, then sighs, sighs, sighs. "Amalthus was my Driver. I'm a Flesh Eater. He was the one who did it to me, and then I disappeared off the face of his world. You don't think that might be a little bit more than just awkward?"
Maybe not for Lora, who couldn't and can't possibly imagine a circumstance in which she'd be anything like awkward around her Blades. Jin does all of that for the three of them, for one thing, and everything else about the totality of their bonds is so fluid, so forever, so rest-assured and rest-well and rest-of-time-together.
There's a reason Minoth had stared so hungrily at it, when it had first manifested before him outside of battle, after all.
He's still not sure Lora had really noticed that. Jin had, for sure, and Haze had been spurred, then spurned, by it. But Lora?
Here and now, Lora chews lightly at her lower lip and begins, then aborts, several sentences that blink out on a puff of air. Minoth had expected his pointed, loaded question to poke her into self-reflection, but not anything so tough-tallied as all this.
"Lora?" he prods - almost calls her Lady, but bites back on it. No need to tease.
"I didn't think we were so similar," is what she manages at last. At first her glance is to the side and down, uneasy, but then her eyes make a slow flick up to Minoth's. There's daring there, and a lot of it. Her tone is much shakier than what depth of resolve her gaze belies.
And so, what she'd been referring to as awkward was her accusation itself, and not the preceding scenario that had driven it.
Rather than engage directly with that offering, however, Minoth finishes the general thought: "But you couldn't stay behind like I did because you had to escort your Blades, right? You had to make a showing for the king."
Lora snorts, still honing eye contact. "Is this another 'maybe I should thank him' bit, then? Or are you just trying to make me resent you for being able to avoid it, this time?"
Lora, resent him? No, Minoth should perish the thought swiftly and painfully.
"I'm just saying," he says, and it sounds damnably bitter, "that I have my reasons, and you have yours. It was a brave thing you did, to go into the throne room despite your fear." No matter if Haze says there's no need for concern. If Haze says that, what she means is, "I'll handle all the concern we need here, thank you." Because Haze can be a little snippy, a little shady, sometimes.
"But our reasons are the same, aren't they?" And then Lora's grabbed his hands, which confuses Minoth almost as much because he hadn't remembered uncrossing his arms as because he can't remember a time anyone's ever done such a thing near him, let alone to him, with him.
But he doesn't jerk away. "You're afraid they're going to take Jin from you, right?"
Lora nods, wordlessly.
So Minoth shrugs, feeling the weight of Lora's arms rise and fall with his shoulders. "I don't have anything for anyone to take. It's already been taken, and given, and passed around. Actually, for me, it's no more than awkward. I'm just an avoidant ass, like you said."
Oh, Lora nearly shakes him, for that. "That's not what I said! Argh, you're a real piece of work, aren't you?"
Minoth flashes a canine. "I try."
"Alright then, have it your way." She shakes her head, nose up and eyes lidded. "If you're going to be an ass, you'll be my ass - I'll be your knight, and you'll be mine. Wherever I have to go, you have to go with me, and vice versa."
"I don't remember" - again with this - "asking to strike any deals," Minoth deadpans in response.
"Actually, you did. You said you don't have anything for anyone to take. So, I'm giving you me."
"In other words, you're taking me."
"Guilty!" Lora giggles.