(give us a) light show
i'm not giving this to viivi because idk if you would. want this. but i'm not sorry for breaking out of the dadcage i'm proud of myself. this isn't ship but it is
The shame of it that Mythra will never know how she learned eclipses the halo of her curiosity, very nearly.
Kissing, huh?
She saw Addam do it with his wife. She hasn't really seen anyone else do it, firsthand.
No one really thinks of kissing, in front of the Aegis.
She has the definition, but in her memory banks there are no pictures, which makes sense. This isn't exactly a relevant combat tactic. If you had a poison in your mouth, you'd run the risk of swallowing it before the successful transfer. And Mythra's no assassin, anyway.
Not that it matters what she knows about it. It only matters what she doesn't know. She knows that experimentation is a part of puberty. She knows Alrestians at large tend to treat her like a bratty teenage girl.
She knows that being bratty comes with a penchant for asking for, and then again taking, what you want.
And she knows that you can't just take something like this. It has to be given.
As much as Addam's given her, he's taken all of her patience and energy in return. All of her temper. All of her...her whole life.
She hasn't had anything that's really hers. And she understands, she does, that this is a huge responsibility Addam's shouldering for the both of them, in the sense that no one really cares what the Blade thinks, so the onus is on him, except that it isn't, because actually, the entire responsibility is on her. What responsibility is it to tell someone no, don't do that, stay back?
Mythra's the one who has to listen.
But enough about Addam.
Mythra's interested in Minoth.
Don't make her explain why, she just is. Isn't it obvious?
Anyone would be. The bar is on the ground, thanks to Addam (sorry Addam, so sorry, sucks to suck), and Mythra knows her jaw hung open before it snapped back up underneath her smudge-pupped nose and she inquired, "A Blade?"
Can he explode things? Can he choose not to?
If it had been Mythra coming in to blast the Jagron, she'd have hit it with Chroma Dust. Or no, Ray of Punishment, to pull Siren in to the mix. Since she liked doing that, usually. Since Siren was guaranteed to be her friend; had been made to be that way. Nothing else ever was, it seemed. (Except Malos.)
She cringes to think about her thought process, now that she's older and wiser. Booming flashing retribution, since she comes from something up on higher than the sun, than the stars, and that's awesome, by definition, right? Right.
The monster, foolishly, had struck for easy meat, with the two-for-one of shrimpy meatless twerps. A tactical error, owing to human sentimentality. Addam, rushing in mid-pounce, was a wonderful bonus that didn't count for any sort of ingenuity (and when did he ever?). Mythra could be just such a scornable one for switching gears like that.
And with one beautiful, effortless shot, Minoth had saved the three of them.
Searing a Slithe Jagron clear through from hide to bone to marrow wouldn't necessarily have helped things. More than likely, the corpse'd've fallen right on top of its target, and crushed them in the selfsame fashion. Mythra's horrendous luck, worsened with each day spent at Addam's side, or in front or back of him, would have made it just so.
So Mythra needs precision.
Bratty doesn't do precision. Maturity does.
Father damn it, she just wants to know.
It isn't about Minoth. It isn't about his long hair, his deep sighs, his steady gaze, and his big ideas that he says in a soft voice, turning them over as if they're pebbles in his hand.
Okay. Maybe it's a little bit about Minoth.
Mythra just wants to believe that she could have that precision. Seeing what she wants, asking for it, and squaring her shoulders with the result.
"Minoth..."
He looks at her with that quizzical gaze, left eyebrow listing slightly upwards. An arch look, literally. The whole left side of his face takes cue to skew, and it's so very maddeningly attractive.
That's the word for it, right? When someone, so imprecisely, makes you want things?
The traditional definition of a courtship, of marriage with a view to starting a family, is somewhat orthogonal to Mythra's current predicament. She comforts herself with the stubborn insistence that she is making evaluation of worthwhile qualities, instead of just saying "he looks pretty, and I want that" (which...to her, those things are intertwined; if Minoth were annoying and stupid, like, say, Malos, she wouldn't want any of this - if Minoth were annoying and stupid, he'd just be her earthside brother; it's a tricky stitch, and Mythra tries not to need that logic too much so that she won't have to think about it too hard).
"Can I help you, Mythra?"
"I was...curious about kissing." Since I'm allowed to be, and since that's normal for someone like me. Hell, isn't every kind of curiosity normal for me? How should they know if I know anything? I don't know a damn thing, sorry to say.
"Ah." Minoth smiles, like he knows something, and Mythra can't think of the last time anyone's done that to her. For her. It could be a smile of mischievous exclusivity, that's true, but she hasn't seen those either.
"It's like..."
Mythra stops him before he can say something about blooming flowers or mutual breaths or the only possible endpoint for certain impulses of affection. She doesn't know that these are the impending possibilities, but she stops him all the same.
Kissing can be sloppy, she's heard, but Mythra needs precision.
"Not like that."
Minoth makes an inquisitive noise, to match his face. "No?"
"Let's go somewhere else," Mythra says. She leads him by the hand and tells herself that his hand in hers feels right. She pays no mind to the environment, only the distance. Torna is so boring. Why is it so boring?
Be precise, Mythra. Don't think about how there isn't anything else you can really focus on right now but this.
Don't think.
Don't think.
Why did he come with me?
Mythra turns around and looks. The hands, of course, are dropped, sort of subconsciously.
Parting his lips twice or five times, each time swallowing back to the hooks of his ears, Minoth says nothing. To Mythra, it's somehow unthinkable that she's gone this wrong this quickly. Usually there's at least a little bit more preamble...right?
Eventually, Minoth speaks. "You have to know what this means."
"Actually," Mythra says, "I'm not sure what's going on right now."
"Didn't think you'd get this far?"
Ugh. "No, just confused. You can be confusing sometimes." Like it even needs pointing out...
"As can you," says Minoth, again archly. And, maybe, point. "I would have told you to ask Haze, or even Lora, if experience is what you were after. And I can understand wanting privacy, too. But this...I'm not sure what this is."
Mythra thinks that Minoth sure seemed to be into it, and understanding, when he gave her that amused little "Ah." Mythra thinks that she's been criticized enough for being too high-strung and up-tight that this shouldn't be a problem.
Mythra thinks that this is all horribly imprecise.
"I just...you're interesting."
"Thank you," says Minoth. His posture is loose, ostentatiously pointedly so. He wants to cross his arms, but he won't. Mythra hasn't either. "I just you're interesting too."
"So you'll do it?"
"Do what?"
"Kiss me?"
Instead of answering, Minoth takes a slow lean forward, regrasping Mythra's right hand with his left, and kisses her cheek, right up close to the corner of her mouth.
"You're very interesting," he says by way of explanation. "I'm sure I can't help being endeared to you. But...well, there are a multitude of reasons."
And she hadn't even asked why not.
"You don't make any sense," Mythra pouts, and there's nothing but Minoth's breath, Minoth's scent, Minoth's hands, Minoth's eyes, even though her field of vision is much wider than his oblique column of blues and blacks and browns. "Eligible girls, my ass."
"I'm not interested in your ass," Minoth says. "Patently so. Just not for me."
"So kiss me uninterested."
Minoth laughs aloud. "That, my friend, is something I'll never do."
"I can't make you interested?"
"Oh, Mythra..."
"I've never been kissed before. Isn't that-"
"Thank the Architect, no."
"You think you're better than me?"
Damn it all, she's ashamed, she's ashamed, she's ashamed, but more than that she's burning up with anti-ennui and if this doesn't end the way she wants it to she can't imagine what she'll do with herself.
Precision.
Deep breath. Fists curl, uncurl. Brush the bang out of her eyes.
One more breath of clean night air for good measure.
Mythra fixes Minoth with eye contact. He's only a person. Which is the point.
"I'd like to kiss you, once. To see what it's like."
Minoth nods, keeping the contact. "Can I ask you a question?"
Maturity. "Please do."
"Do you really have a crush on me, or I am just the closest available person who isn't likely to snap at you?"
The contact turns into a potent look. "Since I don't think you want to try planting one on the Emperor of Mor Ardain."
"No," Mythra sniffs, "I don't."
"Don't...?"
"Want to kiss Hugo."
"Do...?"
"Have a crush on you. I think."
"And kissing me will help you determine the veracity of that hypothesis?"
Precision. Experimentation. Scientific method.
"I'm scared, Minoth," Mythra says, instead of answering.
"I gathered that," says Minoth. Somehow it's not condescending. "It's gonna be okay, hon."
Bratty Mythra would have run away crying. Precise Mythra teeters on the head of a pin and swallows back her tears. Emotional distress is an option for an Aegis, after all. Someone programmed that in. But not kissing.
"We should go to sleep." Data packet received - "I mean, uh, not together."
"But I haven't kissed you yet," Minoth says reasonably. "I'm sure you haven't forgotten?"
I can do this. "I can't do this." God damn it.
Minoth laughs, crosses his arms - finally! Finally. "Didn't mean to scare you out of it. But all's well that ends well."
She grabs his arms and untwists like an Ardainian pretzel. Fixes the eye contact. Throws in a tiny bit of pleading.
It's just a kiss. It's just--
It's gonna be okay, isn't it?
god help me i have got to get weirder on the internet