San Jacinto
So this title was originally slated for a Breath of the Wild piece, and then I listened to the song again and was like you fool. You absolute fool. This is Minoth. Minoth and whoever he is relating to in the moment, it isn't a "Minoth alone in his angst" type of deal. And since I wasn't in the mood to write F/A/M angst I did this instead. To give a rare timestamped snapshot, there are currently 15 Team Addam pieces somewhere in my pipeline (i.e. published or not), and somehow I intend to make them all bring their own something special to the table. We'll see how I do, in the end.
Coarse, was the word. For the sand, and for Mythra. They had made camp somewhere under a cliffridge of the Great Breaksand, and all of Dannagh stretched out so seemingly infinite around, before and after them.
Camp should have been the peaceful antithesis of their battling days, but it wasn't. Because Mythra was coarse and Brighid was refined and Jin was reticent and Lora was bumbling and Haze was fawning and Hugo was judicious and Aegaeon was deliberate and Addam was an idiot.
Milton and Mikhail were asleep, conveniently. More adult talk to only bore them more - they'd probably enjoy Mythra's sympathetic supernatural stunts, really, if only the damned things didn't make everything and everyone so god-awfully long-winded.
He didn't even care to discern what they were arguing about. If he'd been distilling it down into an anecdote, he wouldn't have bothered. Do you want me to bother? Will it please you? The classic attribution of antagonism was that she'd overwrought her powers, that they hadn't needed Siren down there in the cave with the Antol queen, that she'd had no regard for Addam's safety as he stood just to the side of her, hapless as ever. Possibly, she'd shrugged it off with the question of why she should have. A little mean to her, there, but was it not true?
The bickering, the flickering of the fire, it was all a constant ostinato, now. Minoth cracked his neck back and forth, in time with it, out of time with it, in the pattern and by the book, and then he felt the sudden urge to blaze his own trail, again.
Not away from here, no, but away from complacence. He'd had complacence in Indol, and not rejected Amalthus nearly enough on his radical ideas and ideals. The turning point on the cliff, with that baby...far and away enough to serve brutalest example of his failings. Oh, intellectually, he knew he couldn't be blamed, he knew he'd never come close to the faintest suggestion of blaming another if there had in fact been another in his place, but it stung, burned, smoldered, rankled, all the same.
Complacence, for a Flesh Eater, was just accepting that life was the beginning of death. Humans didn't think that, because their life was theirs to live, and they knew exactly the expectancy of it and its own expectations. Blades didn't think that, because death was only immediate, for them. They could not, would not feel the gradual decline of their Driver's health, because ether does not age, the affinity only grows.
A Driver will only need their Blade more. A Driver will only wane away their presumptuous greater value more and more. The Driver was never stronger, and now the Driver is weaker. But the accomplishments are named for the Driver all the same.
In Indol, that is. And for the royal who hold Blades, in Torna as well. Jin, the Paragon, and Brighid and even Aegaeon held their own histories. But not Mythra. None save Haze had ever called her Lady. But had she summoned up that reality of her own? Return to this, in a moment. Pace around the corner to the aside, very soon.
Blades, memoryless. The chiefest of their properties. Their time to live was defined by their Driver, but they as anyone else could only watch as a spectator when the end began to come. Not every Driver has only one Blade. Not many Blades have only one Driver, ever. From the first and the former on in to the last of the latter, even that they cannot claim, truly. Time to live? Time to life. Time to death. The antonym so easy, the idiom turned inside out.
At times he wanted to turn himself inside out, wanted to peer in at the gutless blood that coursed through him now and desiccate, desecrate, that which Amalthus had already ruined. He hadn't been ruined like Malos had, no, but he'd been changed, concocted away, all the same.
Nobody had ever changed Mythra. Minoth was entirely ready to believe that he'd first perceived her just the same way as every other nanosecond she'd ever been incarnate, anti-inanimate, to be perceived. Nobody had ever changed Mythra, no, but he was also entirely ready to believe that Mythra wanted so badly to change herself. Just like him.
Only she was not anything, anything like him. Rolling on down from the most intrinsic first, she was Light and he was Dark, her weapon was a gigantic sword and his were petite pistols, sometimes daggers - as if you could call anything about him petite, and there was the next bit, she was a literal short-fuse firecracker and he was an old tallow candle that'd like as not turn sallow for real if it didn't get burned down to its base in time.
Not a blemish on her, and he all blistered up with rutty scars, graying away with the gruesome tinge of that selfsame slow death. You couldn't fit much more armor on him if you tried, and if you took any more of hers off Brighid would really have something hypocritical to steam her about. Because for all the appearance of an angel, she was not. Oh, she was not. As if that weren't obvious. Maybe it wasn't.
Mythra, Mythra, Mythra. Why do you contrare so?
The easy adjective was "bratty", just as the easy comparison was to the mythical and pre-ordained perfection. She got angry when she didn't get what she wanted, like a child would.
She wanted respect. Perhaps also like a child would. But then, she wanted respect because she thought she deserved it intrinsically. Not on the basis of her personhood, which in all likelihood she was never meant to so corporeally have, because Amalthus was his own worst bandit, but on the basis of her title. The title that she hadn't earned.
She had not appropriated Aegisdom, no. But she refused to learn the scope of their totaled mutual circumstance in some of the same pitiful kind as Addam's cowardly refusal to let her learn the scope of her own self. And Addam...he was another matter altogether.
Minoth appreciated Addam more than he could put into practically any words - and that should tell you, shouldn't it? The sheer gravity of his feeling. A Blade loves their Driver, again intrinsically. A Blade has no choice but to love their Driver, unless they are put to the absolute direst straits of strain upon their bond. Unless they have a reason to hate their Driver. And a Flesh Eater chooses, right? But falls into the same love in the end, if they're lucky. Minoth counted himself very, very lucky. So there, you see.
Yet, if you will recall, the perception? Minoth did believe that Mythra was just the same as she'd ever been. She didn't hate Addam, but she didn't have that obvious, intuitive grasp upon his heart, and he upon hers (or Core, or facsimile, or combination), that Jin did upon Lora, or Brighid upon Hugo. If Minoth had to compare quantities of devotion, he'd find his more matched to Haze's and Aegaeon's, but Mythra oh so surely did not fall in with that other primary faction.
The point, then, is that Minoth didn't believe Mythra had been turned against Addam, had decided to start acting out after months of petty abuse and disrespect. She'd just always been this way, and Addam in his foolish, foppish youth hadn't changed all that much either. He wouldn't have felt free to, of course. The fate of the world lay upon his shoulders, and he was not Atlas, was no Atlas, classical statue-molded (not quite statuesque, no) physique or not. Even if Addam didn't, wouldn't, ever shrug.
Interesting that the destruction of the world lay to Malos's blame, and the saving of it to Addam. Not to Mythra, who was compelled from birth to destroy the closest thing she had, the closest thing any Blade had, to blood family. The dirty work fell to the Blades, eh? Of course. Makes enough sense.
But as much as Addam cared to the most obvious, most staggering fault, it was plain to see that he was not anyone Mythra should particularly love. He was not the beacon of an unimaginable second chance, he was not the child raised from innocence, he was not the benevolent trustee of her legacy. (Haze loved everyone and Aegaeon loved duty; that was the way in which Minoth would excuse the conflation of primary and secondary. Fine enough.)
And would Minoth tow the line? Would Minoth take it upon himself to stitch together that barefaced, shamefaced, poison-laced lie of a bond?
Maybe. Maybe not. Because just as it was not Mythra's place to speak for all Blades when she was so nascent, it was not Minoth's place to speak for her fresh-faced experience. He was no less than a decade old in this incarnation, and perhaps some full thousand years of aggregated lifetimes besides. For a Blade as for a human, a decade was not such a long time, but oh, he felt old. He felt so very old.
And that? That was the biggest difference between him and Mythra. He'd cultivated his, quite frankly, bitchy attitude, over years flown by like wine not so fine but hopefully just as appreciable, had dried up his humor with care and nuance. Mythra's brave face didn't hold nearly as much strength as he yearned to see it do.
Addam is our Driver. I'll be the first to say that he's an idiot, but he's our Driver. If you don't mind sharing with me, I don't mind sharing with you. If you do mind, then that's my work cut out for me, isn't it? We've got to be together on this. There's no other way.
No other way. So, Minoth leaned back into the circle, ignoring Hugo's watchful, curious eye, and crooked a single gravitas-laden finger at Mythra. The remaining chatter quieted down; Brighid's eyelids screwed the slightest intimation of irritation, Jin's ears showed the same, Lora pursed her lips appraisingly, Haze followed suit, and Aegaeon and Addam, already silent for absolutely dichotomized reasons, looked on.
Mythra, for her part, iterated through every idiosyncrasy known to man nor monster. Eyes rolled, eyebrows raised in impertinent synced-up rhythm, breath snorted, head cocked, and then the Aegis herself gave the first line: "What, are you gonna lecture me now? Captain Cowboy's cue? A-no thanks." The final marker of disinterest was her arms crossed up barriers, and she leaned back with a smile all too heartrendingly proud rigged up onto her lips at having finally scored a point in this ugly, ugly bout.
Oh, Mythra. You deserve higher and mightier victories. Real ones. Not just those that come from smacking around your compatriots with your words and blasting away those questionably sentient with your heaven's weights.
"I'm not going to lecture you, Mythra. Near as I can see it, you've already had quite enough of that - for anyone's standards," Minoth tacked on with finality, casting his first glance at the audience to ensure their continued taciturnity.
"I motioned for you to come over here, did I not? Now, you don't have to do a single thing you don't want to do." From the looks of it, he'd just stolen her treasured retort off of her oh so prim and proper goddess's perfect lips. Not. "But I'd ask you to think about it. Consider it, at least."
With that, Minoth stood, turned, and ambled away from that very same audience that he'd so easily cast captive. Unfair that they listened to him, the newcomer, the uninitiated entrant, but not her. It wasn't only because he had the flesh. Was it? Wasn't it?
She followed, eventually. Her steps were shorter, sharper, quicker on the sand, almost like she was afraid it would swallow her up if she stilled too long. He had an advantage in length both vertically and horizontally, but he was also heavier. There, the evidence. You can stop and reflect sometimes, you know. It hasn't killed me, much as it's threatened to. I don't know if anything can kill me now. I doubt anything could ever kill you.
Will you ever die, Mythra? Do you want to die? Ever, or now?
Time for thinking's over, Minoth. The conversation opens up. You'd offer her a seat if there was one to take, but ah, maybe she's not that much of a lady by any stretch. You're certainly no gentleman.
She was meeker, though, now. A clue into the act, that she didn't feel the need to strut so if there wasn't some catty threat in the shape of a Brighid or a Jin present. And Minoth wasn't a threat, then, by that logic. Pretty solid, and he did say so. To her, even. Quit the whinging; the conversation opens up.
When she let it, that is. The hesitation was painfully tangible as she kicked toes into the dunes above where they'd once so recently sat. Restless. The nervous energy was palpable from both of them. So stop hesitating.
"Do you like being alive, Mythra?"
Oh, Mythra startled now, like an apprehensive animal. Feral and fierce and all too precious - suddenly, she felt endangered. "What kind of a sick question is that?"
Rather than answer, or dodge in kind, Minoth gestured to the ground, whereupon he settled with legs splayed long in front of him and elbows propped up on the bent knees of the same. His fists were closed, though relaxed, and they squished against his cheeks as he watched Mythra, his head still but his eyes roving, mirror his posture, however reluctantly. Yes, he knew exactly how silly he looked. They'd die of the gravity if he didn't embrace it.
"An operative one," Minoth murmured, still in the confines of his manual splint. "Wanting to be alive, or not, informs every single thing a person does. Everything."
Mythra snorted, but this time it was without malice or affront. "Sounds like something Malos would say."
Did it, now? "And just how would you know that?" If, in fact, they'd never even met, as she'd said.
Mythra struck a true mirrored pose with head held in hands to answer. "I mean, it sure as hell isn't something Addam would say. He wouldn't pretend to be half that wise. But otherwise...that's completely in sync with everything Amalthus seemed, seems, to believe in, and everything what I've seen and heard of Malos suggests."
Ah, yes. Our idiot. And your supergenius supercomputer brother. Would you... "Would you rather Addam was more like Malos?" Unspoken if not explicitly implicit, implicitly explicit, and he wasn't sure if she'd either deign or dare to pick up on it: Would you rather Addam was more like you? Because you and Malos are, oh, so very, very alike.
Unspoken again, in the turnabout...would you rather you were more like Addam? More like Brighid, more like Jin, more like Haze, more like Lora, more like Hugo, more like Aegaeon? More like me?
Because I wouldn't want that, and that's not only because I hate myself. It's because I love you and all that you are, I'd rather venture.
In the back wings of Minoth's writer's mind, he pined for a world half so poignant-poetic as to have allowed him to speak those words out loud without knowing it, without knowing that they'd seized upon the chance to escape the crucial confines of his coward's mind. In the front, the curtain opened to Mythra's shock-painted face that that world was here, was unrealistically real.
Just because it was now laid out textual didn't mean it was going to be easy. The next-in-sequence chewing of a pale, trembling bottom lip was the first and easiest indicator of that sad fact. Mythra hadn't bothered to lash out at the four-letter word, so odd and uncomfortable in this context or any other. What did Mythra love?
Mythra loved...Cloud Sea Crab Sticks, and Siren, and the unabashed excitement she thrilled in at a new recipe experiment (before Milton, or Mikhail and Jin, his pupils, had shooed her so unceremoniously away), and watching the rare smile when one of her creations was actually edible and enjoyable.
A lot of food, huh? Minoth felt so viscerally how much he was thinking on Mythra's part, how much the internal dialogue might only serve to undercut and betray that real, but it wasn't as if the mutual silence particularly invited any more clouds to cross over. Keep thinking, Minoth. Architect knows you've got to use your ponytailed head for something.
Most of those edible entries were snacks, small items to be shared with ease - oh, there! Eating snacks with Haze. From time to time, Lora even joined in, and without any resistance from the hosting party. So Mythra didn't hate people, companionship, on principle, didn't hate humans like Malos always had professed to when Minoth had met him offhand.
Didn't hate Addam, probably, no. Didn't love him, as far as he could tell, but didn't hate him. And that was something, at least.
Didn't mean she wanted to be alive, though. That will informs everything, but so does the will to boil over a brave face. Enough soliloquoy, then. Back to the successor of the operative question.
Ah, well. Not yet. There's something in the way, there.
"You don't have to have an answer to that, you know," Minoth allowed, gently. Mythra jerked up from where she'd been scrawling circles in the sand with her finger at the sound of his voice. "I didn't really mean to say it out loud."
Just as quick as up, back down. Some kind of wind leaked out of Mythra's sails, somewhere. Amend, actor. "Not that I didn't really mean it. I did. I do."
The diadem disappeared out of sight as she flopped back-first full-out onto the sand. A low grumble arose: "Okay, well...fine, I guess. That's more than anyone else would ever say. Not sure I would want them to, but, you know. At least you're different. Somehow."
Captain Cowboy, different somehow. Just as he'd suspected. "Could be it's because I am different from all of them. Just like you are."
Because I see you in me, and me in you. And I can't love myself when it's me, but I can when it's you. There's so much to admire about you, Mythra, but you cover it all up with your swagger. Addam doesn't make it easy, but, well...you don't make it easy on him.
"But, like..." Mythra stretched her arms up straight towards the moon, then let them flop fruitlessly back down to her sides again. "What do I do about it?"
"Do about what?"
"They all hate me."
"Oh, Mythra..."
"What?" Her tone sharp, of a sudden. Flighty, or threatened to be so, at least. Minoth didn't waste time thinking the explication to himself here.
"I don't think a one of us hates you. Addam and I might be the only ones who really care for you, as yet, but that's something you've got to earn."
Minoth stood, crossed over to where Mythra lay, and offered his hand down to pull her up. It hung suspended, for some moments, white gloves clapped unending frustration over her eyes. An addendum needed, perhaps? Call it a cue.
"Keep in mind, I'm only an observer. But I think earning others' trust, and letting them earn yours, is one of the most beautiful things there is to be had in this life."
Blades and their bonds are trust incarnate. So isn't it beautiful when that cultivation is done by the hand, from the heart?
"And even if it's not...there's something to be said for playing nice, you know."
So what if she only removed the blocking digits to make clear her exasperation? The clap of her glove into the palm of his was so powerful, so strong. Mythra pulled on the lifeline with all her strength, and Minoth was beyond glad to let her.
The immediate fidgety brush of sand out of and off of her hair was seemingly instinctual, and his circle around to check the spots she couldn't see was much of the same. She muttered a "Thanks," and he could tell that it was genuine, inflected with the positive, warm twinge of a shaky smile.
Now for a test. "You ever think about tying that up?"
Again, the machinations ensued. "No way! I'd look like I was all matchy-matchy with you. Gross."
Minoth tapped sage finger to nose - his, though he'd considered hers. "If you trust me, which I've gathered, then I can only conclude that you say that because you do in fact appreciate the distinctions that we each have, and not just because you think I'm 'gross'." There were worse things to be called, as a Flesh Eater, but hey. Still.
Mythra screwed up her lips and eyes, processed this. Processed it for a long time, along with the remainder of the conversation. "If Addam was more like Malos, I think I'd have to kill him," was her eventual graceless pronouncement.
Aha, now he tapped the tip of her nose. "If he were more like Malos, my dear. It's called the subjunctive mood."
Shockingly, Mythra incensed at not the epithet, nor the gesture, but rather the explainer. These reflective times of the night evoked a headspace more sardonic and less whippish, however, and so the outcry was not a wounded one, nor one particularly wounding: "I'll show you a...subjunctive mood."
"Will you? I doubt you care enough to remember what it is."
Oh, low blow, Minoth! But that was banter, not bullying, and she let him guide her back through the dark down to the scattered array of blankets, where Addam was indeed waiting up with all his care and worry needling insomnia into his quick-blinked golden eyes, because he was useless like that, of course he was. Worth loving anyway, but still...god, so useless, sometimes.
"Did you, er...have a good chat?" Useless, but motive, here. Okay, Addam. Keep at it.
Mythra sucked in a breath. "Honestly? I think it was a load of baloney. But..." She flicked her gaze up at Minoth, and he met it, sent the challenge back on down. Do you, now? "...I'm willing to try to be a little more patient, if you'll be a little more patient with me."
Atta girl, Minoth thought, but didn't say it, lest he be deemed even more of a street preacher, and patronizing into the bargain. So much they'd left out of that conversation, so much reductive, so much left to the dust and the wind. Was it enough? Would it be enough to tide and turn the tides?
Addam sighed and nodded his grateful affirmation. "I think that's a good start, Mythra. I hope it'll make things a little...easier, between us."
Good. Maybe a year late - one could only pray that it wouldn't be too little too late - but good nonetheless.
"Yeah...whatever." Up went the blanket Addam was holding, and away went Mythra. So perhaps the patronage would have been a better option. Ah, well.
To cap off the evening, Addam made to get out a "Thank you, Minoth," but Minoth stopped him with a raised hand just as silent as the initial beckoning finger that had started this whole progressive affair off. "I don't wanna hear any flowery words outta you, Prince. Next time you're talking to her. I can only cover your ass so often."
"Well, but I didn't ask you to--" Another sigh. "Yes, alright. We'll talk. We'll talk."
Because I won't suffer your complacence either, Addam. You've got to earn the right to be her Driver, too. Even if you don't want it.
Even if you don't want it, you've got to live. You've got to make the best of what you're given. Sometimes that's a raw deal. Sometimes it's a chance meeting with fate's partner chosen just for you. And sometimes, precious sometimes, even when it looks the most unlikely, you are given the very best of what the world has to offer in raw, unconsecrated form. Rude not to polish up the structure, eh?
Basically, I'm never done thinking about them. My goal is to make sure that none of you ever will be either, and that more people join me in writing about them. <3 <3 <3