baby don't bite
"But Master Addam, aren't you worried about your wife?"
He frowned, nodded, examined himself lightly, all as usual. "Well, of course I am. But there's nothing to be done about it now. Look how far we are into the Titan - if they haven't sent a messenger by now, they likely won't at all. We'll be too far gone."
The pleasant, hopeful uptick at the end of such a grim pronouncement had Haze teetering on her subsequent question, probably something fastidious about how they'd planned this and the drama of it all. She'd probably incriminate Mythra's lack of cooperation as she said it. Or, she would have, except she didn't half know what to make of what Addam had already made.
It was the easy math of someone who knew the lay of the entire Titan, and how many hours' travel time were to be allotted between ribs and neck and chest - for dragons and for humans alike. Now, these things took longer when it was the first baby (unless Addam - or Flora - had another secret as yet unrevealed), as well as when it was the first trip, for any trepidatious soldier. Also, Flora was a small woman. Also, Tornans were not large people. Also, healthcare was a medical art.
But all of that careful calculation paled in comparison to the strange life of truth, which was that at that very moment, Noowl was panting his way up to the Holy Gate, about to heave hands to knees and also contents of stomach to ground.
"Lord Addam! Sir! I-"
And then he died, or very nearly. Addam's face had already been set into lines, but he still stepped forward to lay an encouraging hand on Noowl's shoulder, indicating his attention toward the serious topic.
There were very few things such a man could say at such a time, in such a place. When Noowl arose, breath fleetingly caught, he gasped out the only thing the situationally aware expected: "Lady Flora has gone into labor!"
Haze nearly squealed with excitement, but then she remembered herself and clapped both hands over her mouth, nervously peeking at Lora. Now, Lora was also excited, but she was looking at Jin, who was staring narrow-eyed at Addam. (Brighid, of course, was doing the same.)
Addam only sighed. Once. Twice.
Then he cupped Noowl's skinny shoulders with both of his broad hands and instructed him, in that low voice that he so rarely used, "Tell the militia members to take care of her in my stead. You're all more than equal to the task."
A ripple of consternation moved through the group, louder even than that which had resulted from the revelation that Addam had a wife, at all.
"You're not going to go?!" Lora cried out. Even if you can't do anything - just to be there, at whatever time. Haze, silently but exuberantly, agreed. Still, Jin just stared.
"Addam, surely it will be alright," said Hugo, and he meant for Addam to leave the quest at hand for his more pressing princely duties. Aegaeon would have nodded, but he was thinking of the complexities of childbirth and whether or not Doctor Mungo would advocate for suspension in water.
Mythra said nothing, only chafed.
And Minoth?
Minoth stood quietly, making his own judgements, reserving the wisecracks for other times when he was more completely sure of himself.
Addam, jaw clenched as he considered the situation, looked at Noowl. Brow furrowed, Noowl looked back at him.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't. The future of Torna, and indeed all of Alrest, is dependent upon us bringing this off right. You know Flora, she can handle herself!"
Blank stares greeted him.
"Ah. That's right. You don't know Flora."
Now the stares boggled up and down, assenting. Even Mythra pursed her lips, rolled her eyes, shrugged.
Addam scanned the group. These, his dearest friends, and none of them knew...
But then his wandering golden eyes alighted on Minoth, and the decision was made.
"Minoth?"
It would be impossible to describe Minoth's expression except to say that he had the prescience and expectation of some kind of wild animal, or else a family dog. He looked up through his lashes, then through his brows, face finely neutral. Some minute muscle in his cheeks moved, twitched. His own jaw worked with the same scale of movement.
"You'll go?"
Minoth could have spoken out, then. He could have asked, in front of everyone, why me? Why what I am? What does it mean, that you call upon me now? What does it, ultimately, mean for you to send me in your stead? What do you think I am to you and your family, as it momentarily grows?
But Minoth didn't say anything. He just waited.
Everyone else waited, too.
(Noowl panted. Addam distractedly patted his head.)
Though they didn't stare into each other's eyes, those with a close scrutiny would have seen that Minoth and Addam only had eyes for each other. The evening howl of the wind in the desert, floating dust particles through the air, accompanied them as though they were in a vehicle running down an interstate, moving and motionless all at once.
"Will you go?"
Only Minoth could hear Addam's voice, so truly, as it cracked.
"Of course I will, my prince. A gentlefellow always flies to the aid of a lady in need."
While everyone else was smiling (or else tittering) at the warm feeling of it all, Addam made some sort of a contorted scowl that was mostly a persistent grin.
If Minoth had been standing closer, perhaps they would have shaken hands. As it was, Minoth just surveyed the group and nodded, once, to them all.
And then he was gone, while Noowl yet rooted in place.
"He's a strange one, Lord Addam," the Gormotti man muttered. "Your company are...wonderful fun."
Minoth knew the way back through the desert more as an interior prediction than as any kind of many-traveled path.
It was a matter of straightening out all number of bumps and turns, corners and curves, back to the rhogul-flight straight line directly from one side of the desert to the other (still, the center of the Titan out to one far edge).
As a mercenary, he'd never been asked to help deliver a child. He'd probably been asked to do a couple of escort missions, unbeknownst to him even though he tried to be as observant as any one gruff creature could be, and probably helped to gather the right monster parts for painkilling elixirs of all kinds, but never entering into the proto-hospital room to see the crowning head.
Certainly never standing there to act in the place of the husband, who was busy some hours away preventing some active armageddon.
They didn't even know that Addam wasn't coming back, come to think of it. They didn't know that it would be days, maybe a week. Who knew how long the final battle could possibly take?
Minoth tiredly sniped a Scorpox away from his footpath, dodged around a sinkhole, and kept running.
They'd been about to rest, when Noowl had come. Hadn't set up camp yet, but were readying to. So Minoth should have been tired in more than just affect, all the way down to his synthetic bones, but somehow he didn't feel it.
It wasn't pain he was in, after all. The cool of the desert was an approachable night through which to move; not too hot, not too cold. Minoth felt all his joints rotate properly in their sockets, his boots strike the sand as boots were meant to walk, heel to toe and back again.
Somehow it seemed that they were always thinking about traversing the entire span of the Titan. Other people surely didn't need to transplant themselves this much. But Minoth was eternally a man divided. Maybe Addam was divided, too.
How much time? Well, a full day's trip from Auresco, but they - he - weren't going from Auresco, and the hostiles were restive but not prickly, because they knew what lurked among them, and Minoth didn't have to stop to take the same breaks that human travelers would.
He wasn't as unstoppable as a Blade would be, he figured, but then again...he'd never made such a trek in those before times.
Well, whatever. How little it mattered, now. He breathed in, breathed out. Maybe he was halfway there.
By the time Minoth had finally reached the outskirts of the manor and port, he truly did have aches in places he hadn't thought could ache. His nose had run, from changes in temperature. His side had stitched, ripped and resewn.
But that was him and his old body. He was here for Flora, and some tiny child's new one.
The few staunch faces that remained in the yard (Augustus, for instance, the ever-responsible) became confused as they regarded Minoth - too confused, even, to call out a "Hark! Who goes there?" or some such. Actually, they didn't even know that Addam wasn't coming back. They wouldn't, really, until Noowl got there the next day.
So Minoth ignored them. He was in no mood to please. He reached Vez's post, found Vez not there, and threw wide the double doors just far enough to accept his entrance, not far enough to slam on the return.
Sounds of commotion as he entered the main floor told Minoth exactly where he needed to go. There was Vez, who babbled something unintelligible that was probably an enthusastic greeting (Minoth prepared himself for the same when Mungo managed to clap eyes). There was Vronka, doing something militant with a kettle of hot water.
The hall was dim, like someone had forgotten to turn the lights on as soon as evening had swallowed shut, so Minoth slipped into the bedroom still without anyone noticing.
And then he saw Flora. More of Flora, in fact, than he had ever wanted to see.
Were Addam here, Minoth would have just stood, barely, inside the threshold, waiting for someone or some spotlight to call upon him. Though he tried not to be, he was awkward, in such situations. He would have made friends with the paint on the wall, with the moths in the ether lamp, with the lack of pattern in the rug on the floor.
Flora, eyes and lips both shut and straining, was in no state to recognize him, let alone to greet. This was a natural process, surely, one that in any other circumstance Minoth would have gathered much upon which to opine, but he'd really never known the extent of how excruciating it was. The refugees that gave birth tried to preserve some shred of dignity, and did it in their tents. Minoth had never been allowed to help.
So he moved to the left side of the bed, by the headboard, and sat himself, halfway down the thigh, just out of the way.
Finally, Mungo saw him and made to cry out - but Minoth, coming into some stage presence, brought a swift finger to his mouth and shushed the good doctor.
Flora's fingers were wrenched into the sheets, nails twisting cotton from pale blue into a shadowy violet and palms mottled red and white in the absence of blood with which to swell.
As soon as she relaxed for the slightest moment, Minoth reached down and took her right hand in both of his. If he squinted, and imagined, he could almost say that he saw her relax.
(Was he relaxed? No one could say. He didn't know. He was out of his own mind.)
Now he would wait. There was nothing else for him to do. Nothing else in the world...
Until Flora's hand realized what (or maybe even who) it was holding and squeezed far harder than when she'd just been punishing the poor sheets.
So maybe it was to be a white-knuckle affair. It'd been a while since Minoth had seen one of those. Even longer since he'd been in one, and that had involved an operating table and paper sheets rather than a king-size bed low to the ground.
Minoth half expected for Flora to be confusing his hand with someone else's, until she gasped out, "Minoth..."
Minoth's eyes shot wide. Flora's were wide too, between winces. She didn't look at him, but she almost smiled.
Then, "Crowning!" cried Mungo, which was the part Minoth didn't want to know about and the part that seemed the most cliché of this all.
To be honest, Minoth thought, I really don't care about the baby. Oh, I hope it's healthy, and I hope everything and everyone goes and does well, but I don't know what to say to a newborn baby, so if the baby goes and cries in a bassinet in the other room, well, that'll be okay.
Well. So maybe Minoth regretted, even to himself, being honest. That wasn't really how he felt; it was just that he felt painfully out of place, and also painful in his left hand which was significantly larger than the one that currently held it.
Just as he decided he'd switch to his opposite hand, and kneel in the opposite direction to look at Flora instead of at the body parts emerging from within other body parts, Minoth heard a sound that was surely the language of some other population which he had never met - which Blades were only very distantly related to.
Flora sighed, winced, and sighed again, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. Minoth wondered, thinking back to his anecdotal knowledge of babies' first cries and their mothers' associated screams, if Flora hadn't cried out because she hadn't needed to or if she'd bitten down on her lip and swallowed it.
Huh. He didn't know. He must have whited out.
It was a dangerous position, to be an ambulatory adult in the labor and delivery room. Minoth pretended to be very focused on a knot in the wood of the headboard to avoid Mungo asking his assistance. Probably, there'd been some crowing about girls and boys and hair or the lack of it on the miniature head, but neither in the bed had paid it any mind.
As Vronka marched in with water and towels and some kind of implement with which to cut whatever needed to be cut, Flora finally seemed to come back to consciousness and turn her flushed face to one side, cheek thrown against intemperate pillow, from which position she could finally set studying eyes upon Minoth.
That was what Minoth expected, anyway. Suspicion, of fashion. Currying time. What she actually did was laugh in conjunction with her tears and cry out, "Oh, Minoth, I could kiss you!"
Which was, of course, something normal that people said when they were overjoyed and overwhelmed and overexerted.
Minoth should have had his wits about him a fair bit more than Flora did, but he was still, in fact, flustered out of his mind, and said nothing, only blushed himself. If it were Addam, probably, he would have replied slyly or else boredly, "Well, why don't you?" In that winning way that beautiful cowboys had.
He didn't have to ask Flora why or why not, though. She, being a woman of her own mind who could handle herself and all, just did it.
Logically, Minoth knew that Flora could be forceful, when she wanted to or needed to. Addam? Well, he'd never seen it, but he believed it, all the same. The strength of character it took just to be someone like Addam carried years of unspoken witness to tense conversation(s) that very nearly came laced with threats, except that they didn't. So Addam could probably choose his moments.
This, however, was no choosing. This was messy, unthinking, full-throttle, desperate breathing through someone else's throat and mouth.
And Minoth, being a gentlefellow with a heart, well, you know... He liked it.
Then there was the matter of the baby, and the swaddle, and the skin to skin contact, and whatever else mothers innately knew that Minoth had no idea about (and never would, thank you very much). Flora cooed over the baby, and cried some more, and clutched it tight in a way that Minoth could tell: she'd held many a child in their hour of need, when it came to playground scrapes and petty problems, but this was her child, to love closer than any, and cherish without any barriers between.
What that meant for her emotional support surrogate parent partner, then, was that he shuffled his knees back to crouch a little farther away from the bed and their intimate moment of privacy.
He'd ask about a name, in the stead of the group, but where was the rush? That was Addam's job.
Sure enough: "What will you call your child, Mistress Flora?"
When Minoth directed his attention to Mungo, he saw the doctor's bright eyes for the first time in his life, active and shifting gray even couched in their puffy sockets between bushy brows and beard.
It was a miracle, indeed. It brought genuine character and presence out of everyone attending. One new life had the power to refresh all others.
But Flora frowned, just the faintest bit, as she remembered what this all meant. "Oh...we had names picked, but I couldn't possibly decide that until Addam is here. Until Addam's seen them..."
She took a moment to stare, herself again. The baby didn't focus on her with any real clarity, their eyes roving cloudily from place to place and face to face, but to Flora she was seeing right into their soul, into the transparent place of skin protecting their tiny, tiny heart.
The child was still red-faced, with only a small patch of dark hair covering their soft, as-yet-misshapen head. Their eyes were blue, but baby blue; indeterminate and indicative of nothing.
But they were a beautiful baby, with ten fingers and ten toes, one assumed, so everything was in order.
Minoth realized, then, that he'd said nothing to anyone since his arrival. And that was all well and good, because he had nothing to say. Still...he should say something, shouldn't he?
"Congratulations," was what he managed, and Flora hummed happily to hear it. She nuzzled the baby's crown with her freckled cheek, kissed their tiny ears and nose, traced her own short-nailed index finger along the impossibly short side of their little finger and hand, down to wrist and forearm.
This was a human body that had never worn clothes, that had never known and now knew no shelter except its mother's body, even now as Flora's life was the focus of the entire manor and thus had in some sense permeated the entire building, unhumble structure of wood and stucco and stone.
So congratulations, yes. But also, let's step quietly, now. Let's let the world change around us, while we wait, with our infinitesimal little change.
It was obvious that Flora, bangs mussed and plaits untied, was in no mood and of no mind to give up the baby anytime soon, but Flora could also defy expectations, and she did when she asked Minoth, "Would you like to hold them?"
And what was he going to do, shake his head in comical lack of nuance and say, like a coward, no?
So he took the baby, which was about the length of his arm from elbow to tip of middle fingers, and held them cautiously, away from his Core - it seemed wrong, somehow, to let the two touch. It seemed also wrong to hold a baby like this, the way Amalthus had held that other baby, but what else could he do?
Flora, somewhat stripped of her vocal functions now that her heart had been handed away, just looked up at him with a frown and wordlessly gestured: I said, would you like to hold them, so please, hold them? Hold them close?
Minoth's knees felt weak (honestly, just plain tired, from all the kneeling) and he shook, slightly, in place as he endeavored to follow Flora's fervent and furtive direction.
Couldn't be so bad, could it? Children had been touched by Blades before, and Lora had come out alright, right?
(Well, Lora had come out a lot of other things, too, but mostly alright.)
Flora hadn't corrected him on how he'd arranged his arms to hold the baby, anyway. He knew that you had to support the head and cover the feet, make a basket of your arms but still act as a cradle, primarily. And then you rocked, rocked, rocked.
"I think they're healthy," she whispered. "It's all I could ask."
Wanted to say Minoth, how can you tell? How could you possibly know, at this very moment? So long as they're not blue - and this had nothing to do with Indoline slurs, though Minoth did prefer not to see blue people, just because of how they reminded him.
It depended on your definition of healthy, and Minoth knew that Flora had no cares for the supposed detriment of learning disabilities, et cetera. Well, rather the opposite: she cared a hell of a lot, and she did all she could in support, but the point was that she'd never say a child was unhealthy if they had a little trouble with math, or reading, or social interfaces.
This child, only a few minutes old, had no idea about any of that. Minoth wanted Flora to be happy, of course. He just didn't want it to be for the wrong reasons.
One of those wrong reasons, as it happened, was that he was there. But he wouldn't say so, because that would only point it out and serve to make things worse.
No name for the baby, who had calmed from their screaming (screaming? what screaming? they'd hardly noticed) and lay still, awkwardly breathing, until Addam came back. That could be quite a while. That could even be...
Well. No. It really wasn't nice to think about that.
"You have to call them something," said Minoth, because he thought that was the politest possible way to address the situation without actually addressing it; with deftness and tact, indeed.
Flora nodded, slowly and dreamily. One hand was at the baby's cheek, caressing it without even a touch, while the other fidgeted uselessly in her lap, over the bunched-up covers.
Even if she wouldn't say it, Minoth knew that she wanted the baby back, so he gave, and was maybe secretly glad of it.
As soon as she held her baby once more, had smoothed the staticy hair on their head and soothed the screaming that came from the transfer of body from arms (any home) to arms, Flora's words came back to her.
"What do you think?"
Think? What was there to think?
"I think you're doing a fine job," said Minoth. He resisted the urge (and wasn't that terrifying) to reach out the tip of one finger and caress the tiny cheek himself.
And where was Mungo, anyway? Wasn't the doctor supposed to be the one making those determinations?
Unwillingly, Minoth picked his head up and away from the mother and child reunion to swivel his gaze around the room, from the door at the far end where the manor office hid to the washroom in the corner, the window to the moor, the open door to the side room with that promised bassinet easily in view.
The ether lamps burned heartily, but the room itself was still dim. Lazy, sleepy creatures could lid their eyes and rest.
"Not that," murmured Flora, drawing Minoth back from his distraction. "What should we call them?"
We? As in, the world? "I thought you and Addam had picked out some potential names."
"We had." She moved her crooked (one syllable) finger up and down to nod the baby's curled-about fist with it. "But we can't use any of those."
"You can't?"
"Not until Addam gets back. I mean...in the meantime."
Oh. "And you want...me to decide that?"
Flora smiled, leaned her heavy head over to where Minoth had unthinkingly leaned himself in. "I thought you were supposed to be good with words. You're an impartial third party, anyway."
Rather than wrestle with that, just then, and kneel now to the weight of his supposed impartiality, Minoth considered her question more fully. A temporary name, for a baby? Why shouldn't it stick, then? One had to remember that these things were rarely as ephemeral as they were promised to be. Blades got one name, ever, and they knew it. Suppose they didn't like it? Suppose it wasn't really so surely known to them?
So it would have to be cautious, but somewhat gimmicky. It would have to be not all that deeply chosen, and at the same time picked with infinite care.
Flora. Flora's baby. Addam and Flora's baby, but Flora's baby first.
Something small that came from a Flora - came from a flower, that is.
"You could call them Bud."
(Actually, Bud Origo sounded asinine. It was better than Stamen, was the point. And Petal was a little too feminine, a little too close to Pet.)
When Flora didn't answer, didn't say anything like a smart little "Well, we'll think about it," Minoth thought that sleep had finally taken her. Her eyes were closed, her eyelashes thick with the thrush of sleep, and her lips moved wordlessly.
A final statement came, though: "You'll have to get undressed."
Now, Flora was a straightforward person who didn't like the smarminess of being coy. She said what she meant, and she meant what she said. If she had to say the things she meant in a particular or particularly clever way to the specific people she was talking to, in order to get specifically what she needed and wanted, then she would.
It seemed, here, in this instance, that she was too unearthly tired - and reasonably so - to work through any of preamble, so she'd just jumped directly to the conclusion.
Minoth would have to get undressed, she'd said. In order to...what? Sleep, probably. Sleep in the bed, because beds were where you slept, when you could. Sleep in the bed with Flora. Sleep in the bed with Flora and the baby.
And you couldn't sleep in a bed with a baby on your chest if your chest was covered in artificial leather, the likes of which was outwardly unfriendly to even the most adult of humans.
"I was going to sleep outside," he said, because he'd figured that Flora liked when he could read and decode her thoughts, and give her recoded messages in return.
"You were. And now you're not." Flora swatted delicately and indiscriminately at Minoth's chest, feeling around until she could catch hold of the hems of his jacket. "This...this has to go."
For her comfort, as well as for the baby bud's.
Without a doubt, Minoth would do this. The practicality of it all made sense.
It was the fact of who and what he was, even in human society, that irked.
"Pardon me for stating the obvious, but I'm not Addam."
Madam, I'm not Addam. Truly, I'm not.
Shouldn't the baby be crying?
When Minoth saw the flicker of a shadow, he turned - easing Flora's head down onto the pillows - to see Vronka standing in the doorway, lit now fully from the hall that someone had doubtless stumbled within and necessitated the lighting of the sconcelike lamps.
"We all wondered," she said. "I'm sure we didn't expect you."
You. Yeah, there was a little accusation in her tone. Urayans were a brusque bunch, called it like it was and like they saw it, which was how it was, unless you were Augustus with the eyepatch.
You, who aren't her husband and who should have no stake in this whatsoever. You, Minoth, the joker of the pack.
He stood, crossed to where Vronka was, cast himself out into the light. "She wants me to sleep in the bed with them."
Vronka shrugged. "So do it. That's why you're here, isn't it?"
Well, no, it wasn't. Minoth was there, here, because Addam had directed him to be so, and Addam had done that because the rest of the party had whinged on him to make a showing.
It was almost as if Addam himself didn't want to be here. And Minoth, even conferring with any available adult shoulders to shoulders in the doorway to block out sleep disturbance, wasn't bold enough to ask Vronka about that.
"I just...I don't feel like she really knows what she says."
Vronka fixed him with a glare. "You think too little of the lady. She always knows what she says."
Minoth shrugged, against his own full volition. After all, what did he think she'd say to that? Would Mungo aver the same?
"And who's going to tell Addam, anyway? Are we making it a marathon, sending someone to meet Noowl halfway?"
"That's up to Lady Flora. Or," Vronka looked at him sideways, "that's up to you."
In other words, there's your choice, cowboy: you run back over the hills and the valleys to get to Addam, wherever he is, and you explain that the baby's been born, yourself, because you think yourself no more than a messenger, or you do as the damn woman has asked and you get your bare chest in bed with her, to do what must be done in all facets of the worded world.
"Minoth?"
And now Flora was calling for him.
"Close the door, would you?"
I'm not Addam, Minoth said. Yes, of course, she knew he wasn't Addam. If she thought any different, she'd have been calling him by the wrong name, asking him the wrong questions, touching him more than she already had been. And that wasn't to say that Flora didn't want to touch Minoth, just the same.
Addam had told her his Blade friend could be squirrelly - famously so, enough to get him traipsing across entire continents in pseudo-secret just to make sure no one could tell him what to do but he himself.
Flora agreed with that, actually. It was much better than sitting home and complaining about your station. It was certainly the best one could do with the cards one had been dealt, if one was present at the table for dealing.
So now she had Minoth, because Addam was at least that thoughtful, and he was philandering in the hallway with Vronka, because he thought he should be begging her pardon.
Well, and he should be, in a moment, if he didn't bring himself back, because she needed to hold someone and be held. She needed to be supported, here with the newborn baby, because she hadn't gotten into this alone and so that wasn't how she was going to get out of it. She didn't need to be. Ergo, she wasn't going to.
Ergo, "Minoth?"
He turned back toward her with apprehension in his eyes, which didn't wobble in the ether-tinged moonlight but which did sharpen and soften, back and forth, back and forth.
Just as a cat or a human widened its focus and perception of light, to see all that was possible of something or someone it loved, so too did Minoth look, then lurch, vaunt and vacillate.
Always about light, and what we could see. Minoth regarded himself as a blotch of darkness - but he wasn't Malos, for the Architect's sake. He was only a person, and then something more.
With her arms full, Flora couldn't do much more than whine, so she tried to affect her most effective face of pleading to beckon him over. And then, when he did amble closer, he would loom over her, being that very blotch upon the page.
As if Addam wouldn't be the very same, to cast a shadow? As if they weren't shaped so similarly?
Apart from the hair, which Flora wanted to touch, and feel, and comb her fingers through. Addam's was thick, but also fine. Minoth's was coarse and textured.
Big shoulders. Bare shoulders. Big in front. Big in back. Flared pants. Breeches. Cape at waist. Assless chaps.
All only - or mostly - clothing. Presentation. Weren't they just the same? Weren't they just honest men?
Minoth had the Core Crystal, but he didn't act so different. Addam said that his personality hadn't changed, so much, about the time of the procedure. He'd only changed as he'd opened up to Addam. He'd been himself, through and through.
Only a person. A wonderful person.
Flora soothed the baby, who might as well from then on have been known as Bud, but they seemed somehow to be naturally calm. Babies were not necessarily supposed to be this way, but in Flora's experience this was a child who breathed with its mouth and its nose alternately, so it was exercising both essential pipelines for function. It didn't need to scream, if it knew that its lungs were working.
It. They. Flora found herself unbothered by either. Her child was a perfect angel, not much for all of the fussing. It only went to show.
She wasn't used to be people not doing what she wanted. Actually, she just wasn't used to being wrong. Did people think of her as willful, perhaps? Did the occupants of the militia tents think, oh, there are our landlords again, just doing whatever the feck they want, and daft-headed the both of them?
If it were so, now wasn't the time to find out. Now certainly was not the time for revolution.
But it wasn't revolution. It was just coming to bed.
Flora waited for Minoth. Minoth came. And then, with a deflating sigh, he began to remove his armor.
(The baby, for a blanket, nestled under Flora's nondescript shift with her.)
Did Flora preen at this little trick she'd turned, in some sort of silent, distant communication and cahoots with Addam even though she most definitely wasn't? Of course she did. Of course she did.
Minoth tried to imagine it as if he were a night nurse, and this were merely clinical. Years in the Praetorium, his initial stages, had taught him much about being clinical, and how people who didn't really care acted - that is, if you were what you put on.
And he'd make himself that. He'd make himself that impartial third-party observer. He'd do whatever he was asked, because sometimes it really was easier than making up his own mind.
He removed his gloves, then his jacket, then his chaps and his belt.
Of course, what was the purpose of this? To sleep, through a first night, with a baby. To provide the baby, ostensibly, with a replication of the conditions it had only recently left, with warmth and security at all angles and degrees; in other words, to obviate any and all angles and degrees, and impressions of open air.
So Minoth also removed his leotard, cringing to himself as each snap clicked itself open and the leather stiffly stretched, to be dropped on the floor.
(Well, not exactly dropped. He made a neat sort of a pile, over his low-ankled bootlike shoes.)
And then he had to actually get himself into the bed, which required shuffling a few steps forward toward it and then realizing that Flora was not quite in the middle but actually scooted toward the left side, so he had to cross around the foot of the bed to get in from the right.
These things, a husband would know. These things, a rightful occupant of this room would do without thinking.
That was what Minoth told himself, and then he reminded himself that Addam, too, was awkward sometimes. Very often, in fact. All three of the Drivers were awkward, and so too were their Blades.
The only one who never was was Flora, and it made one consider one's wild lack of luck.
Unfortunately, Flora had to rouse herself, enough to carefully turn herself over, when the weight of Minoth settled into the bed. If she'd surmised it right, he'd be staring up at the ceiling, rolling his eyes back into his head and praying for some kind of salvation or guidance, such as no one had bothered to provide him for two years running, now.
She kicked at the duvet with her feet, hoping that he'd catch the signal to do as anyone with two free hands should do and fix it. This plan worked, even so well as that Minoth held up the open space to invite Flora into it. Of course, she took that invitation and ran with it, snuggling her arms, with Bud safely coveted, into his open chest.
Not quite as...ample as Addam's, which she'd known, but Minoth was still very muscular. It was a two for one deal, in her mind.
So grateful was she for this divine gift that she almost felt like talking about it. She wanted more from Minoth even than she had in the present moment; she was greedy, and this could sometimes be her flaw.
(She stopped herself before she could even start to think about having both of them here with her, and how perfect that would be.)
But now, she had to be dignified about it. Even if postpartum routines were not always or ever the place for dignity.
"I appreciate you doing this," she murmured, lips just barely held back from kissing his Core. "It's...difficult to explain. I'm glad you understood, anyway."
"Just wanna be helpful," Minoth said, staring somewhere over her head (very possibly, at the bedroom door - and just what was it about that door that kept making itself so damned important?). "I guess I figure Addam sent me here for a reason."
"Love is a reason," Flora whispered agreeably. "Love is the reason our sweet Bud is here."
And of course, back under the Core of the Titan, Addam was being pestered, even if not every minute in word and deed, every second with the desperately curious anticipation of all those gathered around him. Had it been a false alarm? Would it be a very long labor? Would Minoth come back?
(Would Noowl go home?)
And if Minoth wouldn't come back, then what would Minoth do?
"I think it's lovely," said Lora. "To think of everything that's been said about Torna and how wonderful it is, for Blades and Drivers. It feels like the throne - or at least, part of it - is living up to its promises."
Jin sniffed, though he tried to keep it light. "Addam sent a Blade to do something he should have done himself. I don't see that it's so honorable."
"Well..." Lora frowned, doubtful. "I would have gone, if he'd asked me to. It's just that he wouldn't have asked me to."
"He wouldn't have asked you to," Mythra butted in, "because you're not boning his wife."
This got Brighid's attention. "You think the baby isn't his?"
"No, no, no." Mythra waved her hands to clear the smoke of that fire. "The baby's his, but the woman isn't. Sorry, I mean. Feminism. Feminism fail, I guess."
Haze, who should have loved feminism, loved intrigue all the more. To think of such complicated romance, between not just a man and his Blades but a man and his Blade and his wife! And if Addam knew about it, then surely it was for reasons of love and trust and deep feeling. Oh, how enchanting...
Aegaeon's opinion was somewhat more measured. "I don't believe that this is our affair." He stopped, repeated his own comment to himself. "No...innuendo intended."
Meanwhile, Hugo and Addam stood aside, conferring. It wasn't about the battle ahead but rather about the battles behind; about the one left aside.
"Addam...when I think of the conversations we have had, I do not know that I can congratulate you in this." Hugo looked to his friend with serious eyes, all the gravity in his stout little body. "What you sacrifice, for the good of all, will never come for you again."
In all probability, it was already over. There would never be this first experience anon, even if they did have more children, later down the line.
For the good of all: for the survival of the Tornan Titan, and every other Titan in Alrest thereafter. Even if this fight was destined to be futile, there was no chance at any other if Addam deserted his compatriots now. Mythra, of all people, he could not hope to explain his indecision to. She would think him a liar, would lose all modicum of faith.
Addam looked back at his friend, understanding of the confidence with which he spoke. It was not that Hugo didn't trust Addam's judgement, know that he knew himself and his own wife the best of all of them (certainly, considering that none of them had her ever met). Rather, Addam needed to see how it was reflected, from him into his company.
"It is a sacrifice," he acknowledged. "The sweetness of that time, I could not hope to replicate. But having Minoth to support her for me means that our reunion will be all the sweeter. I am..." Tears filled into his eyes. "Of course, I am happy to share this with him. And, too, to let the two of them have their time together."
Hugo smiled to see the familiar sentimentality, as fresh as it was old and young. "So it is, indeed, then...three?"
Addam nodded. "To the best of my hopes. In time, we shall all see it through."