i see the wasp on the length of my arm

Every time Addam visits the Praetorium, Minoth can feel himself getting more and more nervous. His palms grow clammy inside his gloves, and his neck itches just beneath where his collar obscures the rest of his body, chest scars and all.

He feels something. Not sure what it is, but he does. It seems a...little different from affinity, not that he's really had all that much experience with anything significant in that area, and instead of being morbid, his curiosity about it has never felt more alive.

The very word giving the name of the nation, Torna, sparks something in him. He feels his head jerk up straighter, his walk proceed prouder, everything a little brighter around him once he's heard it. Torna. Torna is not Indol. Thank the Architect, Torna will never be Indol. Torna will always be...a world away.

Addam isn't truly Tornan, of course. It's common knowledge, whether it's Zettar who made it so or the king himself, if not just common gossips, that his mother was Leftherian - was, that is, before she died when Adele, as he was then known, was quite young. So Addam comes from Leftheria as his own foreign place, and even though he's an excitable chap generally, Minoth can't really see him getting excited at the prospect of docking at Indol either.

So Torna is their place. Addam will mention, offhand, as they're casing the stacks of the library, that he wishes they could be there, instead, that they could go there, and see all that the great dormant stony dragon has to offer. Minoth will nod, and clench his fists, and wonder why, oh why, is it so special?

Why must he feel this insecure way?

Maybe it's partially because he knows Amalthus will sneer at him. Not ridicule, and not really even intervene, but harbor disdain nonetheless. He hadn't seen the point of Minoth's transition, and on the odd occasion that he did call for his Blade among others, he wouldn't always stick to the preferred pronoun. Of course, it's always plain that the Magister would rather not have to say anything at all, regarding the independent Blade, but Minoth forces his hand, by being just that way.

(Addam, in that carefree but oh so earnest way Minoth adores, very often partakes of all three that generally come to mind. And of course Minoth himself doesn't mind. He thinks, without really thinking, knows without really being able to know, I love him, and I love her, and I love them, but most of all I love Addam. That's always how it'll be.)

If it is, in fact, just affinity, because their resonance has always been so emotionally poor, then Minoth could easily see why Amalthus might disapprove. But it's not just that. They never even really think of it as anything so simple as just that. Addam will say, oh, I wish you didn't have to be here, but never, not never, does he offer the consequent to the antecedent: if you were mine, why, I'd just take you right away.

I'd put you in my pocket. I'd wear you like a badge on my chest, on my heart, on my honor. To know you is one of the highest honors I have ever had - even if there haven't been very many of those, all in all. All things considered, rather, and I am always so fervently considering you.

I am considering you, now so proudly as we stand among the weeds and sands, and deliberating over, well...

"Shall I kiss you?"

The wind is whipping gently through the very tips of Addam's hair, swept messily over his forehead, and he's squinting under the sun. If Minoth isn't careful, he could lose the gold, and then he would be quite lost.

Dannagh isn't exactly a vacation destination, isn't exactly picaresquely friendly. Nevertheless, it is immediately, intrinsically more homelike, more natural, more open and wide to the sky, than either Leftheria, where Minoth's never been because Amalthus's never bothered to go, or Indol, where...where nothing of consequence and then again everything of it ever happens.

They had walked to the gates of the city, cautiously, shuffling steps, far more focused on the shoes of the other man than they had been on their each individual own. They had felt, like as not, like very young boys, not stripped of agency but replete with it, of a very nigh-frightening sudden, and though it hadn't been the first time either of them had ever walked somewhere new or new-ish on their own, going together had been...

Minoth feels himself squinting as well, and doesn't know what it is he's looking for. Lacking of anything else to do, he shoves at flyaways and bangs (some are small enough not to be noticed, and others just so insistently won't ever stay tamed down down down). He doesn't think about Addam's question. He very insistently thinks about anything else other than Addam's question.

His Core is relaxed, even stagnant, because what emotion should it, heartless, feel for a human? For a human other than Amalthus? What does it even know, of those new ways and means?

Addam seems unbothered by the silence, and places his hand quite straightforwardly in the gap between his and Minoth's thighs. Minoth reaches for it anyway. He's not sure whether or not he knows it's a trap. Rather, he's not sure he knows whether or not it's a trap. Right? Are those the same? Aren't they?

So they look anywhere but at each other. That question really shouldn't have been asked; it's sitting in the air, refusing to fade, so terribly out of place.

What are the facts? What are the plot points, the rigid features that define their current moment?

Minoth is a Blade. Addam is a human but not a Driver, part Tornan and part Leftherian. Minoth's Driver is a fair handful, or maybe a couple of those, of kilometers to the north, or whichever direction it is. Above them, anyway. They've come down. They've been lowered, lowered themselves. But if they're so much more relaxed than they should be, why do they feel so tense?

Both sets of gloved fingers grip tighter. Just...just because. Not for any reason in particular. Not for any particular reason.

"Are you nervous, Minoth?"

"Sure am, Prince." Always have been. Always will be...I think.

"Well, the way I see it, there's no need to be. Right? We wouldn't be here if one of us was coercing the other, surely."

Minoth shoots Addam a quizzical look, obviously intuitively understanding what he's getting at but not wanting to take a chance on awkward implication.

So Addam, eyes front and hands - of his own - suddenly clamped frantic stoppage one upon the other, obliges: "That is to say, ah...I'm nervous too."

Minoth swallows and reaffixes his own eyes on a Scorpox cresting a dune some ways away. "Anticipation will do that to you. You been thinking about this very long?"

Was that what you meant, when you said you wanted to be here? Were you writing my name out over and over in your big kid's hand that's never known a lick of cursive?

Do you know what's going on here, and I don't? Not a very routine occurrence there, my prince.

"Not consciously," Addam replies, after a bit of lost-looking deliberation. "But now that I'm here with you, I've never wanted to do anything more."

"Ah." Shit.

Maybe Minoth thinks, oh, this'll hurt later. He'll hurt me for it. He'll hate me for it, but then again he already does that.

Maybe he's afraid it'll hurt right now, and that'll ruin everything - he'll ruin everything, just by...just by being.

But mostly, he thinks, and then he says, "You're my best friend, Addam."

And Addam returns, not unkindly, never unkindly, oh, he is the kindest soul in the world, to Minoth anyway, "I don't quite think that's saying much."

To Minoth? Yes, indeed. Maybe it really isn't. Maybe no estimations do justice, over as under. But he has to think it, has to know it, has to believe and hold it so tight regardless.

That won't stop it shaking, though. That won't stop the precariousness. That won't stop the cracks and the tears. That won't stop me from being so goddamn confused.

Then Addam turns, shuts his eyes, and leans in, and Minoth does no more than awkwardly catch him. You're my best friend. I couldn't but.

Of course I'll swallow one more time, and then take your face in my hands, and let myself fall, without pretending that it doesn't mean anything. Without pretending that I don't know what you mean to me.

They pull apart. Eyes flick from eyes to lips to cheeks to hands and back again, back again, back again.

"I want to take care of you."

"What if I don't need it?"

"I know you don't. And I know you do." I know I do. "What I don't know is..."

"Is?"

"I haven't the faintest why."