i woke up and sensed the new condition

"Why did you say that?"

Minoth wakes to a near-blinding light jutting hands on hips and leaning inquisition over him with golden hair as a not-so-private curtain. Mythra. So she's a little different than what exactly he had gauged, at first. But not in this way.

"Why'd I say what?" And he doesn't get up, but doesn't cover his eyes either. He can tell that she's caught them - that she can tell that she has and he knows it and all, rather. The more he blinks, the more he feels the set of his jaw, the saliva in his throat. This cannot be good for his health. Ah, well.

"That I'm like Malos." Before Minoth can respond or even given any minutest cue towards recognition, she tacks on, "I'm not."

Huh. He could ask her why not, could set himself as the one who needs convincing more than she does, but that's probably asking for trouble, because his bet is that if he did ask her, she wouldn't exactly know. She'd stutter and hang, suddenly out of her depth and lacking aim for direction even though this was all, all, all she had to cling to.

And he shouldn't taunt, either. Shouldn't say to her, oh, you're not, are you? Then you're yourself, and what's that?

Not much, is what it is.

"You didn't feel it, when you awoke?"

"Feel what?"

"That there wasn't a single thing you wanted, nothing more you needed, than what he asked for?"

Whatever Mythra is doing to process Minoth's words, it's a cold start; it comes damnably slow.

"What's your favorite color, Mythra?"

She brushes her hands back to bottom on her skirt, distractedly. "Y-yellow? White?" Green?

"Bet you anything Malos doesn't have one. He's never thought about it before. And you...you've had time to think, I'm sure. Milton's been with you the whole time."

Milton. Twerp. Of course.

"What gives you the right to just...assume that?! What do you even have against me? It's not like you've known me long enough."

As Mythra says it, she swallows around the reality of Jin and Brighid as they aligned with Addam without a visible moment to solidify, and her neck takes an involuntary shudder.

Minoth sighs. "Blades awakening and being bound to only their Driver's bidding and no more isn't normal. I see him in you, like it or not."

Him? Which him? What?

"After all, do I look, sound, feel, read anything like Amalthus to you?"

Mythra shakes her head, slowly slowly slowly, and this time it's her shoulder that jerks and rolls back.

Why is he doing this? What does he want?

.Maybe she should just go back to sleep

"Would you want me to be?"

"I..."

"And how about you, then?"