time goes by, it's the time of your life

grumpy old men unite...maybe ([1] [2])

"I was just thinking about you, Jin. Just looking at that old photograph."

The photograph had been the first time Jin had taken off the mask, when among people. Among people, that is, as denoted the villagers. But by then, were they not all among people, everywhere they went? For they went together.

Jin had just burned the photograph. That had been the first time he'd put the mask back on. Did Minoth know that? Guilt wrestled with itself in Jin's throat. The sweater itched, of a sudden. Do I owe you anything? Do you mean to get anything out of me?

Can you?

He stood, didn't sit, quietly in Minoth's study in Fonsa Myma, taking in the sparseness of the room that seemed so unlike the playwright. Truly a playwright, now. The title and all, he had. But not the storiedness. Not the history. Not the identity of his own.

Why did I come here? What impulse, what impetus, drove me to your door? It's not as if I liked you. It's not as if I counted you as a friend.

I didn't have any friends. No one mattered to me besides Lora. No one except Malos, now, and he is just a shiphand to I the captain as we pilot the Monoceros on to oblivion. Nothing more, nothing less.

"You know, from what I knew of Malos...he never seemed like the type to turn the way he did. But, then, you never seemed like it either."

Jin, who never wanted to forget. Jin, who never wanted anything to change. Jin who gained more and more diverse companions but said, muttered, again so as not to cast any real disturbance into the air, I wish it was just me and Lora. Still. Again. Always.

Why would that be? He'd been awakened when Lora was on the run from an abusive, nigh murderous, father. Anyone would want change after that. It wasn't Lora's influence, especially not after the dozens of incarnations' worth of accomplishments that caused him to be deemed the Paragon, that would have made him that way.

Was it?

So lonely, Jin. So solitary. I thought that was my job, to be the drifter. The grifter. Don't let us have become more alike than we ever thought. That's...I wouldn't want you to be the way that I am. The way that I've had to be, I wouldn't want you to have to be.

Would I?

"I've never liked humans," Jin said, before he could stop himself. The words tumbled out like a confession, even though the inflection he laid upon them was supposed to be frosty, steely, walled-up and walled-in, formidable.

"That so?" Minoth returned, a parry.

When Jin blocked a blow from Malos, he stood firm, held firm, shoved the flat of his blade back against the evil. Not nearly so flashy or dramatic as Minoth would ever be. Not so offensive. Efficiency may be fast, may be vivid, may be alive, but it is a sad thing. Look around you, before it's gone. You won't wish it over when the curtain has closed.

That so?

The silence he, they, let rest, theatric, cooled from liquidity back to a sheen of ice, again. Letting stagnation and complacence freeze over was what had caused this whole mess. Trouble, that. Abuse set you in cycles, and trauma sealed them shut. Minoth wouldn't pretend himself recovered, but he would hold himself to trying.

"You hate humans, or you hate humanity? Then again, you hate humanity, or you hate humans?" He couldn't help but engage in the parallels. For every left, a right. For every up, a down. And of course Minoth was ambidextrous. Always able to see things from...both sides. Always so comic, duality.

But Jin was not so amused. "Will you stop talking in riddles? Why all Dark Blades have to be poets is beyond me." Oh, as if you don't enjoy the waxing he can play. That is the same as he always was. That is the same as he always will be. Still, your point is taken. Perhaps not well, but I don't think either of us, any of us, are well.

"Aha. 'Enough sophistry.' I recall. I was there, Jin." Jin grimaced. Would you rather I hadn't been?

"So tell me. Do you hate humans, those that walk with beating hearts and vulnerable skin, or do you hate humanity, those that walk at all? Do you hate humanity, the sight of a thousand individuals crammed into a market square that would be, oh, so much more peaceful if it were just the two, or do you hate humans, the ones that aspire to build community in the first place?"

The narration came slow, gentle, with gravity and with gravitas. And that was not because Minoth was so patient, anymore. Not just because Minoth was old. For Minoth did not hate humans. He did not curse what the Architect had given. Save for that one singular day, and all those that lay behind it, Minoth did not consider himself to be living in hell.

"Community with humans isn't anything worth aspiring to. You know that as well as I do."

"Do I?" Again, Minoth let his words ring, didn't chase after the implication. Somehow, the contention was gratifying. Don't you love to hate me, Jin? Don't I hate to love you?

And, then, he gave dialogue again. "Did you freeze Lora's memory, an entire corpse worth of something to remember her by, in a tomb of ice because you hate what she did to you?"

Stillness, waiting. Minoth worked at his wrists, felt the ether lines where they faded into impotence. "When Addam killed himself, I didn't stop him. I let him go. But I don't know if I did that out of love." Everything that Addam Origo ever did, he did out of love. Everything that Addam Origo ever did, he did out of fear. And when you love someone, you embrace the fear.

But Addam didn't do that, did he?

"Lora was a selfish person. Don't pretend that you don't know it. A lot of the things she did, it was in service of making sure she'd be remembered. Making sure that she wouldn't be cast aside and forgotten. Now, I can't blame her. I've got a bit of an inferiority complex myself, sometimes. But still, Jin. You have to know. You have to know that idealizing her will only kill you more fully than you've already died."

A dead man walking. Is that you, Jin? And is that you, Minoth?

Jin didn't answer to most of the accusations, of the laid-out ground-out truth. Minoth knew this. He didn't have to. "I...no. It's a reminder. I'll never forget why I'm working towards what I am. If I do, then I'll be just as lost and pitiful as any other Blade who loves their Driver. So if she can be of any use to me, that'll be it."

"Awfully unkind of you, Jin," Minoth said, uselessly. "Even for all how blunt you've always been, I'll tell you that I thought your kindness was something to treasure. Something real."

"It's not about kindness."

"Maybe not," Minoth allowed. "Try a synonym: compassion. You're no idiot, Jin. You understand far more than just some singular purpose you and Malos can latch onto. You and I have thought long and hard about the truth of this world. More than Malos ever did when he was your enemy. I'm not saying that you should...stop, what you're doing, but I'm saying that you don't have to be so cold about it."

So cold. Jin raised an etch-thin eyebrow beneath his mask, and then he removed the armament completely so Minoth could see the rare twitch of his rarer smirk. "Did you say that on purpose?"

"Well...as I always say, with art, when in doubt, it's intentional. If you make something with your whole heart, everything is bound to have meaning. And if I had any compassion at all, then I hope you can know that I admired you, Jin. Once."

The eyebrow stayed up, but the mask went back on. "You only admired me for my bond with Lora. Don't bother pretending it was any more than that."

"You think I didn't enjoy talking to you? You think I don't respect your intelligence, and your drive, and, yes, your compassion? You are a paragon among Blades, a paragon among men, an absolute statute of admirable character."

You are. You were. Saying all this, you make it seem as if I'm not allowed to change. Is that so?

"You can tell me I only admire you for what you give as inspiration, and then maybe I wouldn't fault you. But if someone inspires me, it only means that they inspire love."

Jin was silent. His hand moved without moving to rest his fingertips on his Core. It is a point of connection, is it not? A maxima, a place where the derivative is absent to infinity. To eternity.

"Since those days, with you all...everything I've done, I've done out of love. And I think that's why you're doing what you're doing, too."

I [used to] use the "inspired by" mechanism quite liberally, but I didn't think it fitting to link all of "I'm The Same As You" parts 1 & 2, by Emrys_Llyr, for the single side idea of Minoth being jealous of Jin and Lora's bond. There may be another story I was thinking of (the distinct notion of Jin being apprehensive about it), but those I linked will have to serve.