keys, the engine of our structure

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i never put notes on fics anymore (obviously i don't even put summaries anymore most of the time !) but most of this piece is over a year old, back when i twittered more and all that. i will not write mass-appeal longfic with good worldbuilding. i will write awkward earnest trans. sorry. thank you. enjoy the lamb :) (if it's not clear i am not demeaning other fic i am demeaning myself)

also i think sometimes i forget that Malos doesn't technically immediately attack once you leave the first meeting with the king, owing to my high community levels because i obviously love this game and do at least a little bit more cutscene rewatching than i might need to for any given fic since it's been so long since i've been able to actually play (i've had ~120 cumulative play hours over three playthroughs as of my recollection one year ago which is of course embarrassingly low but strange and draining life circumstances will do that to you) but regardless i know i timed his attack swiftly in YDDHYUIS and probably at least one other piece (you know how it is with spaghetti). here they have time. love <3

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"You alright there, Mythra?"

Minoth was definitely not the first person she expected to have a one-on-one conversation with after that blowout outside the palace. He'd been lucky she was there, after all - taking the attention right off of him and his Driver daddy issues so that everyone else could swarm on her like a flock of enraged Flamii setting upon a lone injured Crush Shrimp.

Well. So maybe she owed him, then.

He still hadn't uncrossed his arms, set back to neutral. Then again, neither had she, though she'd paced over to the westerly side of the sand gardens to do something definitely not synonymous with what it looked like to sulk. Which, to be honest, was what it looked like he was doing.

What the hell?

"I'm...fine. Just didn't like the way Zettar was staring at me."

"Ah." Minoth nodded in a way that, on anyone else, would have looked like knowingly. On him, it was just...weightily conversational. Mellow, but also just shy of staunch. "You know, I don't quite think anybody likes to be perceived by him. Certainly I didn't, but that's because...well."

"Well what?" Mythra prodded. If he was going to get all cryptic immediately, she was ready to ditch, but not before due diligence. "I told you what was bothering me, now tell me what's bothering you."

"Hahh..." There went the arms, and a crack back of neck. "I suppose it might not be so irrelevant after all. Last time Zettar saw me, I didn't look exactly like this."

"But you're a Blade. Of course you did."

"Not quite a Blade, remember?"

Just as Mythra was about to respond with something slightly more observant about the scar, or of course the Core, or whichever, Minoth continued, "But even so. I don't just mean the most obvious, outwardly visible thing that happened to me. It's not actually something you can see - thankfully."

"Okay..." Talk about a slow buildup from the runner-up Mr. Reticent 3564, second only to Jin.

"Haven't you ever wondered why I've got such long hair, for someone who is, all things considered, a man?"

"Pfft. No." It looked good on him. It didn't bother her logistically, or semantically, or whatever the hell you called Brighid's affect and effect.

"Oh? Do you have a theory or did you just slough off the matter entirely?" The staunchness was more than a little bit undercut by the incoming sarcasm, just like Jin's Thin Ice, but it still stood. For now.

Well. Maybe it was slipping a little faster than that. "Oh my god, who cares?"

"No no, tell me. Why do you think it is?"

"Uh, because you're gay?" Easiest question in the world, and up until this conversation Mythra had been a little starved for those among company that'd actually count her points fairly.

"Massive overgeneralization there," (she'd already overheard at least one more sidewise pontification from him about stereotypes and roles at the campfire upon Haze's request than she needed, which was zero), "but also not entirely wrong. This body, before I - you know, I," he clarified uselessly with a tap on his cranium, "was the one occupying it, belonged to a female Blade. Always tall, always strong, always Minoth, but through and through a woman."

There was something so distinctly uncomfortable about that phrase. Architect knew their playwright was one for motive hyperbole, and so there it was. Blatant contradiction. It sure proves a point, doesn't it? Biting her lip in anticipation, Mythra bid Minoth continue.

"So I come along, newly awoken, and I say to myself, this isn't right. I'm not a woman. I might still be the same Blade, as much as still can ever be when you take the big dirt nap and then someone pokes you back to life, but if you ever call me 'she', or my guns 'hers'...it ain't right."

"Well, then how did you even know? Like, if there was nothing to give you away but your pronouns, which Amalthus wouldn't have known."

"Had the same problem you were just having up there with ol' rat boy."

"Uhh..."

"Am I wrong? Correct me if so."

"...nope. You're not wrong."

"I never am." Oh, he was really pushing his luck today. "Anyway. Now, Amalthus wasn't an ogler, it's j-"

Mythra had to interrupt: "He was when he saw me."

"Didn't think I could hate him any more. Thanks for letting me know."

"Anytime."

Had she really just promised Minoth a lifelong-buddies favor?

...

No time to worry about that.

"So you had boobs, huh? How'd you get rid of them?"

Minoth made no flinch, either internal or external, at the bold slang, ungendered though it might have been. "Let's just say there's a reason I never use my knives for cooking. They've seen their own fair share of butchery."

"You cut off your own tits? DUDE."

"That's right. A dude is I. Was I, more solidly, after that. I got lucky with everything else - no such issues with hips or waist, which shouldn't matter, in general, but it would have been a real bear if they'd not cooperated."

Mythra couldn't say she blamed him. One scar on his face was bad enough, for a Blade; she knew just based on how many people pedestalized her for her perfection, and critized any bits hanging off-kilter (or hanging...any other way). Then there was at least one more on his chest, but probably more like two, depending on the cleavage, she supposed, and--

Nuh-uh. No way. No more thinking about the word "cleavage" in the context of Minoth - whether or not it was gendered!

So reel it back.

"Wait a minute. You're telling me a female Blade had that jawline?"

Most Blades looked like beautiful, otherwordly ascensions of their assigned presentation gender. No way around it, really. It wasn't that a female Minoth with his distinctive bone structure would be ugly, far from it, but, well, every gripe Mythra had ever had with her own awakened shape would cut double the grate if she knew Minoth had gotten his good looks for free.

"Not quite, no. I tried to, how would you call it - manifest? Is that the word?"

"You're asking me? You're the words guy."

"So I am. I tried to do what I could to alter my appearance in that minor way, the way you can change bits of your armor when you don't want to take it off by hand - not that I can do that anymore, but still - and even though it didn't work, I think it was all the jaw-clenching I did while I was attached to Amalthus that helped the most."

He had to have been joking. Had to. (Mythra was a Blade, and an Aegis at that, so stress-related chronic illness and weight fluctuation weren't exactly familiar phenomena to her. 'Twas...part of the whole problem.)

He didn't look like he was joking, though, so she decided she would, instead.

"Hey, spite works."

"So it does. So it does..."

Mythra wished it did, anyway. Sure would solve a lot of her problems that came in the shapes of just those otherworldly paragons.

Minoth, for his part, looked genuinely healed by this odd conversation. Even though the whole thing was doubtless tied in to his overall unworkably high level of discomfort with Amalthus's presence and/or proximity, he'd warmed up considerably, just in general, since the asthma jab.

Was that spite? Was that why he agreed?

"And so how about you, then?"

Mythra gave a start, which Minoth seemed to have been expecting. "What about me?"

"I told you what was bothering me, now tell me what's bothering you."

"Urgh...I hate you," she said, on automatic.

"No you don't," he said back, just as swift. "Now spill."

"Well...so yeah, you were right, Zettar wasn't just staring at me like he stares at everyone, or like everyone stares at the Aegis, he was...looking at my chest."

It was stereotypical, wasn't it? For a moment, up there in the stuffy parquet conference room, she'd figured she had to be making it up - deluding herself into thinking that there was one more person out to get her in new and terrible ways, far beyond taunted teasing and goofy-gruff course-correction.

No way the king's half-brother, whom Addam was purported to be at total odds with on every matter imaginable and unimaginable, was also just plain skeevy, and willing to pass perversion onto any female-presenting body that wandered nearby, excepting his own half-siblings and the king's divorced wife.

No way, right?

But if she had to pick anyone, Zettar was an easy choice, and an even easier target for Minoth.

"If I were feeling more conciliatory, I'd ask how you feel about that, but we both know that's not necessary. Ratsnake is as ratsnake does."

"Yeah, th- wait a minute!" She whipped her head up and around from its focus on milling pillbugs among the weeds in the nearest swathe of moss. "How did you know I was going to mention Amalthus?"

"You pretty much just told me. Not a colossal leap. And that's whether we consider that Addam's deadbeat relative and my deadbeat relative are in cahoots of some undefinable sort or not. I'm afraid there's not much we can do about creeps like that. I don't think you should have to dress differently to avoid them, but that is an option."

"I mean, no, it's not like I like having the tit equivalent of an ass crack right underneath my Core Crystal. I just never bothered to do anything about it. Not like you."

"As I've heard Lora say, flattery will get you everywhere. It will not, however, get me to give you top surgery. That was a one-time establishment."

"Wouldn't want that either. It just...hurts to breathe sometimes, you know?" Minoth's steady, inviting gaze on her kept everything moving in order, but it was to be a close call. "Like I'll suddenly remember that my body is built this way, and the way he described me, and I just-- I just get so uncomfortable even being alive."

("And she's a woman, too. Quite lovely indeed."

Mythra hadn't voiced the quote out of fear of nausea. Its echo in her head yet provided much of the same incentive.)

"Would different pronouns help?"

Mythra, still knitting-knotting her fingers together and worrying her eyes to the point of crossing on the same pillbugs, didn't answer.

"Helped me. Definitely something you could try."

And maybe it was definitely something they had considered. Like, a lot. But sort of...indirectly. More "I wish I wasn't 'she'" than "I wish I was 'they'" - and, given Minoth's own testimony, there wasn't anything so wrong with that, but also given Minoth's testimony, as a living breathing dude, he really had known what he'd wanted, and why and how and when. "He" was a hell of a lot more determinate than "they".

...right now, anyway. But who was to say that with a little practice, they couldn't...?

"I mean, it's like you said. It won't stop crappy people from saying crappy things. But yeah, I guess we could try it."

"'We'?" Minoth repeated, taking his turn, for now, to be incredulous.

"Well I'm not just gonna go around announcing that I want to be called they and them on my own, am I?"

"Huh."

"I need somebody in my corner," Mythra said, half rueful and half wistful. Taking charge was one thing, but... "Feels like nobody ever is."

"Fair enough," said Minoth. "I'll support you."

Mythra gave a small inclination of their head to acknowledge. Didn't matter how much maturity they might or might not be gaining in the process of attempting to enforce code switching towards the more inclusive and respectful on the parts of everyone who saw and interacted with them for at least the next few...hours? Days? Weeks?

And there was the perennial question, too. Just what did Mythra think was going to happen to them after it ("it") was all over? Them, as a group, and them, as an individual?

They set off walking down the steps and through the Viridian Gate, and could hear no sharp yet lumbering boottaps echoing behind or beside. Usually, tagalongs weren't particularly desirable - not Milton, and Addam couldn't be a tagalong to his resonated Aegis if he tried, damn this twisted world - but sooner than was convenient, Mythra tore (the first step, to being torn).

Minoth had just said he'd support them. Obviously, the intended context was the traveling group (the "armed band" of transgressors and transgressive alike, they supposed), but what happened to regular old non-player characters?

Huh. Well, Mythra guessed with slow, faux-distracted steps, dealing with them is the same as wondering why pronouns are so important in the first place. Who's talking about me, when my back is turned, and who's third-personing me, when it's not?

Not much more time to think about it, because they'd arrived around the corner and down the next set of steps and thus at one of the first stalls, and at the snailing pace they were taking, still unsure if they'd be able to snag a wandering Minoth from afar, they'd all but stopped in front.

This shopkeep was an (apparently) rare breed of middle-age that harbored the post-adolescent look of most young Tornan men without the encroaching caterpillar eyebrows and assumedly-fashionable bushy beard; he almost looked Ardainian. Matter of fact, maybe he was, given his reaction upon seeing Mythra and their stun-studded half-hello:

"You...you're that Aegis, aren't you? You're the one what's been causing all that trouble!"

It was doubtless down to the colloquialism, but nevertheless the objectified pronoun stung. Smacked, even. And not even "Aegis girl", just "Aegis". Oh, gender this, gender that...

"Excuse me," came the herald of Minoth's entrance as he hooked an arm through Mythra's crooked elbow and started sauntering the other way - but not before sending his meanest glare, scar and all, pierced straight through the shopkeeper's soul.

"Don't ever talk to me or my daughter again."

Walk away they did, all the way out of Formide and far away from the palace, and it was only when they were about to cross by Pischator Bridge that Mythra's heels began to drag.

"You didn't have to...do that." It was a sentence, a statement, a declarative of the imperative, but nevertheless the inflection of their cadence was upward and unstable. Unsure, in other words.

To answer the implicit request, Minoth unlinked their arms, but still stood close, making clear with the angle of his stance that Mythra should come stand by him at the fence overlooking the water once more. "Oh, come on. Don't tell me you're surprised!"

"Don't...what?"

"Look, I wasn't very well going to call you a child. Now, you don't seem to be upset by the word choice, which was a calculated risk I took, but all the same, I hope that didn't make you uncomfortable?"

"How do you mean?" They said it distractedly, of course, now concentrating on a lone Horned Sculpin wiggling through the soon-to-be ash-muddied water, fingers working once again.

"You know, like that time I called you Miss Marvelous back in Dannagh."

Obviously he'd meant the, well, daughter part of daughter, not the "miss" part of it, but if Mythra was going to play emotionally constipated ball, they were in with the master.

"What about it?"

"Well, it was my oversight, so we'll fix it. We'll call you...Missn't Marvelous."

"'Missn't'?" That got them going again - just as he'd known it would.

"That's something, isn't it?"

"It's stupid and contrived, is what it is."

"Me? Contrived? Not a chance."

"You wish."

The arched eyebrow they got in return for that one was full of more respect than they knew what to do with - and something else, too, something that told them they were being more of a baby about this than Minoth was giving them credit for, but something that they weren't going to touch for all the gold in Addam's wallet. And speaking of:

"Come on, let's go find that Driver of ours."

And so they did, and so they explained it to him, and so he made a lot of conciliatory noises and hawked his head around with his fist grabbing his chin, until Minoth had given him a significant enough look that he'd dropped his own guards in order to be more open to the actual conversation.

"Now, look, I can't promise I'll get it right every time, so if I slip up and call her a she-- Oh, damn it, see, I've just done it there."

Sure you didn't do it on purpose? Mythra thought, but was too nervous for their own part to even almost say.

"Prince, I know neither of us ever had to justify our choices to anybody who actually cared about us, but if you think I'm gonna have one iota of patience for your ignorance, you've got the wrong Flesh Eater."

"Yeah, and just because I'm used to it doesn't mean I'm not gonna notice," piped in Mythra. (They'd made an inquisitive noise at the first half of that sentence, but only got a shushing motion from the speaker for their trouble.) "Look, it's not like you know that many people."

"Mythra...I know practically the entire population of Torna, or at least a critical mass of all those in Auresco, Aletta, and Heblin."

"And how many do you know that are nonbinary?"

Addam looked at Mythra. Mythra looked at Minoth. Minoth looked at Addam. And Addam looked at Mythra.

"Just one. And I plan to make damned sure that they feel safe and comfortable being who they are, if it's the last thing I do."

What a ridiculous proclamation - nothing else made Mythra want to live up to their newly-assigned role of "edgy nonbinary teenage daughter" more. "I swear on my father," they began with a truly massive eyeroll, "I thought HE was supposed to be the dramatic one!"

(Minoth pretended to pout.)

"Well, it's part of the team spirit, isn't it?" Addam continued, more or less heedless. "This is how it should be! Much as you hate me the way I am, I'm sure you'd like me even less if I weren't enthusiastic."

Oh.

Scale it back on the edgy, there.

"I don't...hate you."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mythra, I was only joking." Was he? Were they? "You know what I mean, don't you?"

"Honestly, not really," they said, listless and for lack of a better rejoinder. The banter, much as they hated to call it that, just didn't work with Addam the same way it worked with Minoth. Was it that he was trying to hard to be their buddy? Both of them, for that matter.

Minoth seemed to pick up on the break splitting itself out of the scenery, just then, and stitched it back together - in attempt, anyway. "That's what I'm here for, then, huh? To help you nuts figure each other, and yourselves, out."

"And what about you, Minoth?" Addam turned a wry eyebrow on his second, if not secondary (or was it first, if not primary?) Blade.

"Persona non grata. Capiche?"

"Goodness, Mythra, you've got to help me. He's speaking in tongues!"

"Not anymore, he's not," Minoth said slyly. Addam's wallet and his boots both were now positioned at quite the opportune angle for him to return to the shopping ward, unimpeded by surly shopkeeps, to fetch himself a bit of functionally-free soup or flatbread. This did not go unnoticed by the other two present; it wasn't meant to. And out he went.

"So..." Mythra ventured, drawing out the syllable like spun sugar, or perhaps cotton that was tangling up their tongue. "Now that my walking safe space is gone..."

"Is that really how you feel about him?"

Addam's expression, crafty and genuine at once, gave Mythra pause. It wasn't that he'd forgotten about the element of himself present in the equation, because he couldn't. It was just that much more important to him that Mythra, indeed, feel safe, and how ecstatic he'd be if it was his own guardian retainer that provided that safety, yes?

"Well...he's big, and he's strong, and he laughs loud and he hits louder."

"Sounds a bit like me," Addam pointed out.

Mythra pursed their lips. "If you think that's all you sound like, after a whole year and change living with you every moment, you've got another think coming. I know he's easier because I don't know him as well, and the same for him knowing me. I know it's confirmation bias, or whatever you wanna call it, that an extra Driver-dad is more appealing than the first one. I know all that."

Now Addam's expression was just proud, not even confused or concerned about anything. "You do, don't you."

"Yeah." They ducked their head. "I do. Because we've seen a lot of families, big and small, in that year. Not a lot of gay cowboys with top scars, though."

"Not a lot of princes, either, gay or otherwise," Addam said softly, and Mythra didn't even want to try sussing out the meaning of the flicker at the corners of his lips when he implicated himself a sexuality. The whole of the admission interjection was much more intriguing, anyway.

"That's really what he meant, huh? Didn't think a guy like you had so many secrets."

"Yes, well...for obvious reasons, it's not often talked about. Mungo knows, and well he should, as well as Minoth, and he's probably the most knowledgeable after the good doctor, but it's...well, I don't think about it much myself, anymore." He gestured at his chest. "This mail goes underneath the outer plate frame, and under that I've got a compression layer, so any residual, ah, tissue growth..."

Here he stopped and spared Mythra a glance, along with a guilty smile. "I hope this isn't too much information?"

They'd been drinking it in, maybe even a bit spaced out of idiosyncratic tics in exchange for engrossment, and shook negation, but didn't speak.

So Addam continued, and concluded: "My story's different from Minoth's. Both of us are different from you. If the common thread is what binds us together, though, well, I think that's more than alright."

"It is," Mythra agreed, "but it can't be the only thing. You're still my Driver."

"And mine!" crowed a triumphant Minoth, paratha in hand and in mouth.

"Oh? Feeling sentimental, are we?"

That quip earned the prince a thwack in the chest with the back of Minoth's rigid gold gauntlet, an assault that so squarely didn't surprise him that Mythra knew it had to be far from the first time he'd borne it.

"Always, my prince. I'm a sensitive guy - s'what I get for hanging around with a chump like you."

"Minoth."

"Mmm?" He turned to them with another bite of spiced meat and peppers on its way into his mouth.

"I never said thank you."

"Sure you did."

Oh, they couldn't take him seriously when he'd chosen that moment to make such an impolite ass of himself, but the fact that he'd gotten them, the freaking Aegis, even to care?

Maybe he was right. Same problems, different solutions, massive overgeneralization, maturity and concessions...whatever it was, it was support, anyway, and it went both ways.