And I, with the string level in my pocket

Pyra is born in fire. Born in chaos, born in buffering-suffering swirls of asphyxiative oxygen, she first emerges from the shadows into a situation that desperately needs balance.

No fire can remain alight if there are violent, unpredictable forces stamping and tamping it out, after all. But, then again, sometimes a blaze will keep on flickering, for minutes, hours, days, weeks after one would have thought it'd have shuttered to sleep. They're surprisingly hardy creatures, only they're not creatures, because fire isn't alive. It doesn't breathe, it doesn't beat, it doesn't do any more than pose danger.

Everything in Pyra's posture exudes peace, plaintiveness. Where Mythra was wild and erratic, taking up space and making up reasons to pick a fight with anyone who so much as looked at her funny, because it was the only way to ensure that she'd get any measure of respect, Pyra stands calmly, hands folded, and waits for Addam to give her a cue. She's only there to transport the body of the Aegis on two strong legs to the place of its burial. She doesn't need respect.

Not that she would take disrespect if that's what she was given. Addam doesn't call her Mythra, because he very obviously knows that she is not Mythra, but he also doesn't call her anything else either. And it's not that her name isn't important. He'd just rather not taint it by saying it.

That's if you're giving him the benefit of the doubt. The lines between fear, reverence, and respect are not fine (at least not between the former and both of the latter), but they do indeed need to be carefully tread. Pyra is wonderful at being careful. She was born to be careful. Father strike her down if she is ever anything but careful. Because her role is to be what Mythra was not, and that will come at any cost, until it's safe to stop. That may be never, it may not. So be it.

So Pyra wil keep the balance. She'll depart from the third sword, sleep vigil behind her own, and meditate on that which she has not done. She doesn't remember Mythra's actions and memories in exactitude, but she knows enough. She knows that if her flame ever demolishes a forest, a town, a city, a continent, she will feel cowardly, despite all signs that perhaps she shouldn't, because she has had less than zero chance to get to know her own self, her flesh and bone and burn and brae, and she won't know if there will be another alter waiting to take her place. No one will, until it happens.

Until it happens. As if it's fate. As if all Aegises are destined to destroy the world they were called down into. And oh, yes, that's what Malos would say, but he's wrong. He's wrong! Father, please...say he's wrong.

Balance, Pyra. Level. Patience, maturity, order. Calm the flame. Like Brighid, and then again not like Brighid, because Brighid was a wildflower too.

As if it's hard to keep yourself controlled when you're locked up in a capsule for the better part, the worse part, of five hundred years. Peace out, Mythra, enjoy your sleep, but...we didn't die. I'm still alive, out here. My sleep and your sleep...they're not the same.

Luckily for Pyra, though, she can indulge in a little bit of the same dreamspace when Rex comes along and curiosity leads him to lay his hand upon the hilt of her sword. If she were to be born again, thrust back into consciousness, directly into that chaos, she may have snapped. Or at least, she fears she would have. We all deserve nonviolent reveille, don't we?

But out she comes. There is Malos, still a bastard but now twice as tired-looking. The exact same can be said of Jin. She quite literally flips through the roof, then it's the floor, of the C.S.E.V. Maelstrom, and a tiny, spunky part of Pyra thinks, could Mythra have done this? I...I don't really think so. And how about that!

Her balance is perfect. Her form is impeccable. She darts around Malos and thinks, how nimble I feel, how fluid and dynamic simply to be alive and moving. She tosses her sword to Rex. He's clumsy, but he catches it. I've never done this before. It feels nice.

She still carries Mythra's fear, her will to die away, to disappear from this world, but when she gave Rex half of her Core...that wasn't Mythra's gift to give. That was Pyra's. That was Pyra's addition into the equation. That was Pyra's way of taking action, of taking command, and of striking back at the death Malos was still insistent on perpetrating, on perpetuating, even if it was by Jin's hand.

And, too, that was Pyra's way of trusting. Of being too trusting, perhaps. Mythra "I'm just following this guy since he woke me up" of the Aegis Blade would never have done such a thing. Maybe, would never have let herself show that she was scared enough to do such a thing, but nevertheless. It's the first thing in five hundred years that Pyra's done for herself, and it isn't even for herself.

Is that okay? Have you sold your soul away for validation, Pyra? There are other ways to become real. Malos wouldn't have resonated with you, and Jin wouldn't have either. You wouldn't have been bound to them.

Don't you want to be your own person?

And then Pyra remembers. What was she saying? To be alive. To be moving. She shares this body with Mythra, though they use some of their elevated powers to make the separate appearances more distinctive, and they wouldn't be the same, in relation to each other or as whole selves, if she didn't. She's not carrying the body on two strong legs until Mythra wakes up, because she doesn't know if Mythra's going to wake up. She's not waiting for that. She's living her own life. She is her own person.

Pyra is not just mediatory, she is innovative. Pyra is not just intelligent, she is clever. She's not just a good cook because Mythra couldn't be, she's a skilled chef who bakes love into every dish. She is not just the Blade keeping Rex alive by fancy-dancy ether magic, she is partnered with him on her quest, their quest - either pair, if not all three, just yet - to make it to Elysium.

Yes, her clock may be ticking, her goal may be inevitable, but for now, at the very, very least, she makes her own decisions, she feels out the cracks and crevasses of her own mind forged in literal panic's fire, and she finds what calms her. She finds her own balance. That may be Rex, that may be Mythra, that may be Nia, that may be her own slightly naïve belief in her largely absent father, but it is hers.

Rex knows his role in this world. Malos is convinced of his. Mythra never knew. And Pyra...she'll find one all of her own. But she won't do it alone.

Level can't hang without a string to swing it on.