We'll tease the bull ringing round and loud, loud and round!

Chapter 01: young man says you are what you eat, eat well
Chapter 02: old man says you are what you wear, wear well

"I doubt we have truly achieved anything with this one."

Minoth heard Stannif's words only in a half-awake haze, but it was enough to set his hackles up, and bid him sit up regardless of any nagging impulse that you'll probably wish you hadn't heard that tomorrow, so just lay low--

Whatever. I'm strong. I can take it. Is it over? Has it begun?

The only thing that had begun was silence. Despite his obviously expectant visage, Amalthus gave him only one look of his own, up and down, before waving his summarily disinterested dismissal and turning away with his sinister colleague.

They'll call for me later, won't they? They'll have to. This...that can't be the end. Never say that I'll have missed it, but certainly that's not how I'm going to go out.

For hours, he sat in the courtyard, elbows on knees and hands hanging languidly in between, but no call ever came. Towards midnight, he felt at the resonance for any strain of indication from his Driver, but once again...none came.

Nothing. It was all gone. A strange external presence floated somewhere in his chest, unwelcome and well aware of that identity, and as the bleak dusky moments ticked on he could feel his Core, usually so active in the evening hours, coming unhooked from its resident absolution in the ether.

They promised me strength. They promised me independence. They promised me a purpose. I had one role - literally, I had one role. And now, even that...

Frustrated beyond words, he slammed his fist into the marble wall, expecting a brief shock followed by the numbness of healing. Instead, what he got was the feeling of an irreparable crack scaling its way across his knuckles and the rest of the back of his hand.

Cracked. A cracked Core is broken, dormant. A dormant Core is nullivoid, useless. Yours is neither, but it's something else, now. What's that about how you are what you eat? I didn't eat a Blade. If I'm anything now, I'm a human. But really, I'm not anything. Chew on that, huh?

A human. And that's not so bad, is it? Having a mind of my own about the world isn't something alien to me. I never really sucked so far up to Amalthus's influence anyway. I could be a Driver, could be my own Driver. It's not that hard. Right?

Soon enough, Minoth retrieved himself from those ever-so-slightly warped conclusions and turned his attention back to the actuality of his injured hand. Surely, by now, even with a bizarre and inexplicable lapse in the neutralization of the pain, the impact's effects would have subsided. A removal of the glove with attached gauntlet and vambrace revealed no such easy victory.

So I can't have a Driver, or don't need one, anyway, but I can't heal myself anymore either. Architect, so much for self-sufficience.

I'm to be alone, without normal so-called immortal regenerative powers. I'm to live...forever? As good as, anyway. As bad as. And that means...oh, truly, by the Architect. What will I look like, two, three, four, five hundred years from now?

An old man. Hope I won't look like an old woman, anyway.

Maybe I won't change at all. Maybe I'll just...deteriorate. Maybe it's what I deserve.

You are what you eat, right? Beats me how I could eat weakness and think that it'd ever make me strong.

"Hey, five hundred years's a long time, right? You gotta be proud of what you've accomplished!"

Vandham didn't press further, just gave one last lingering-lumbering look before exiting the playhouse, but his words rang as long as they'd ever need to. Cole grimaced, scrubbed the back of that still-scarred right hand across his eyes, and lurched into a seat himself.

I've done alright for myself, haven't I? I got rid of the Blade armor and all its lurking memories long ago, and living alone or not I'm certainly not slumming it. Isn't this place nice enough? Isn't this occupation real enough?

His fists folded naturally, too naturally, into the billow of the cloak. It's not mine. This isn't me. But isn't it? The masks, the costumes, the values and the names I wear are all me as much as anything else ever has been. I'm a creation, a fabrication. As they say in the theater trade...you are what you wear. And, there are worse tropes to fulfill.

Tch. It's a far cry from where I thought I'd be, back then. Thought I'd lose everything I'd ever worked for, and that wasn't even that much. The self-definition, anyway. Thought I was lost to what Amalthus had given me. But, not so.

What would I tell that young man, if I could speak to him now?

Probably, that it doesn't get better, necessarily, but that that doesn't mean you shouldn't keep trying. Waiting - just waiting - for things to get better doesn't help anyone, and it may in fact never get better for you. But you can help others, can't you?

So why in the hell couldn't you help yourself?

Well. That's a little harsh, don't you think? Not the first part, because it's only true. I wish kindness and even optimism for him, but not slovenly positivity lacking of all discretion and nuance. Only truth.

So no, not the first part. The conclusion, the kicker, the punch line. You did plenty for yourself. Just...not what most would think a quasi-ageless being would do for himself.

The obvious thing would have been to get myself a Blade, and have someone who'd be guaranteed companionship for all my days high and low. Not that grand a guarantee, mind you, because I only stopped being afraid of keeling over and dissolving without a moment's notice when I stopped really caring, but more importantly not that generous of one. I could never have signed someone else up to this.

What would I tell him? Oh, god. I'd just tell him that I'm sorry.