try to pick yourself up, cut that weight that you can't see

Every few weeks, he thought about it. It was an involved process, to be sure, but he still did nothing that could be called any more industrious and/or illustrious than just...having thought about it.

He calculated how much more time he could reasonably spend in the thin, dull air of the Praetorium (reasonably? and standing what argument to or against reason?), divided against how many more distractions he could create for himself in the way of petty amusements and treat-yourself trips to the market stalls down by the port, and then he stuck the whole mess in his pocket and carried it around for a few more weeks, except for when he got kitschy and tied it up with his ponytail.

What would get him out, even just for a day? Oh, it sounded so stupid, but maybe to someone else it wouldn't. Someone else would have done it already, anyway. And that was the rub. So what could he say?

He could say, I owe Addam money, as usual, or I promised a favor to Zettar (against my will, most like), or I told Baltrich about some earrings I thought he might be interested in away in Uraya, because I'm such a swell guy like that.

All normal things. All casual things that everyday people tend to do, when they think of them, that would only lend and tend towards Minoth's own honor, instead of his apparent piteousness, because they're in service of others, and generally that's regarded as virtuous, from what I know. So long as you've got some integrity to it, sure - don't be a doormat by any means.

Trouble was, Amalthus wasn't what anybody would call normal, when you got down to it. Not only would he look right down his pinched-up nose something rotten at excuses like that, even when they weren't only just, but he'd gotten Minoth too paralyzed to even offer them.

Did it count as being self-defeating if you hadn't done it to yourself? If you weren't sure if you had, anyway?

Addam had stopped trying to suggest convenient, all-too-conventional strategies to him years ago. Who cares if he doesn't like you writing? Go out and get yourself a sturdy notebook with a lock, I'll even pay for it! Come visit me, you won't owe me a thing! If I say it's all okay, and you want to, then, why, what's the trouble?

But that was exactly it. No, Addam didn't get it. He couldn't just have things he wasn't supposed to have. He couldn't just go places he wasn't supposed to go. He couldn't just trust people he wasn't supposed to trust. He couldn't just know things he wasn't supposed to know.

And if he tried to leave, well. Then he might be subject to some uncomfortable sautéing about why he never tried to go anywhere himself, why he had- no, showed very little agency outside of Amalthus's own vocational whims. If he said to the man, I don't bother because I know you'll never let me on with it without a lot of passive aggression and hassle, then that would count against him too. Wicked layered standard.

Amalthus didn't infantilize him, not once. Maybe he dehumanized instead, with a little of the Blade-racist flavor and a little of the general note of being entirely disrespectful and dismissive of any and all human interests that he'd project to anyone under his lithe, long-nailed thumb, but he knew Minoth was an adult, as the world would regard him.

So he gave him "free will". Minoth was, in fact, free to spend his time about the Praetorium how he liked. But if Amalthus called for him and he wasn't there? Curtains. Same thing if he couldn't provide a satisfactory response for what he'd been doing all day. He had to be on call. Nobody'd ever really know, though.

If he stayed up late doing something important for either himself or the Praetorium at large? He got the leash to sleep in - for a few days. A few days later, eventually on nigh-subconscious schedule, the admonishments would come. Sickening. It was a nasty feeling. He'd never advertise it as being so wrong on Amalthus's part, because...it wasn't, right?

By sheer luck, because it just wasn't fathomably measurable any other damn way, the one thing Amalthus never asked him to assist with was his research. When he went down into the labs, he went alone. Sometimes Minoth had to fetch him up from there, and he very purposefully averted his eyes from whatever was going on off to the side with Stannif's next plot whenever he did so.

If he got quizzed on aspects of it later, he'd say he didn't know enough to comment because he hadn't been learning, and bear the consequences of it soon after, and if he got accused of peeking, he could very truthfully claim not to know a thing, and bear the consequences of that instead. You know, damned if you do and damned if you don't. As ever.

We could transition very easily to what it looks like afterward, how he looks back on it and how he's convinced of the more wholehearted truth that others who see him also see, but that's not what this is about. Because of course he couldn't get there so easily himself.

Not when Amalthus caught him plotting.

Blades weren't supposed to invite people into the sanctum. They were allowed and even intended to usher guests of their Drivers and other officials into such chambers as had been requested, sure, but not to entertain their own within. If they had public social business to do, they did it in Poldis Circle or Seoris Plaza.

Always just outside. Always just below.

But, say he snuck one strapping young Addam Origo (say, twenty years old, thereabouts?) who could, generally, go where he liked, into Amalthus's room. Just for an afternoon, just to discuss.

Just to show. Just to see.

"Do you get it now?"

Addam was busy nosing around, wondering up at the ceiling. It wasn't dusty. Dust probably didn't settle here. It just...appeared, out of the porcelain-coated drywall.

"Get what?" he answered absently. "This wouldn't be so bad, if you had your own."

"Well, I'm gonna, eventually, when he--"

And then Minoth stopped himself. He couldn't escape it, could he? Not for a second. Everything he did, everything he might ever become able to do, was dictated by Amalthus's actions. He couldn't just ask for his own room - that is to say, he could, anyone else would, but if he did, well...that just wasn't done. It just...

Addam was looking over to meet Minoth's gaze by now, jaw slightly slack and eyebrows slightly raised. He'd smile, if Minoth smiled. He was able to take a cue from the other person present, instead of the dismal setting. Why couldn't Minoth do that?

"Look, forget about it, you should just go, I'm sorry, I should have kn--"

"Prince Addam."

There was a pointed gap placed between the two words. Addam turned, expression now firm, and made a shallow bow.

"Magister Amalthus. It's good to make your acquaintance again."

Good old Addam. It wasn't much, but it could be a subtle barb if it needed to. So they were getting acquainted with all his insidious, nigh-invisible wrongdoings. That was, technically, good - if anything ever came of it.

Minoth, on the other hand, stiffened, shrank into himself. He was already running down the list of possibilities. While it was true that Amalthus couldn't really do anything to hurt him while Addam was here, once Addam left, which he would surely do, because he was only a guest, and an unwelcome one at that, owing both to his own identity and that of the one who had invited him...all bets were off.

What privileges did he have? What secrets had he been keeping? This was merely the checkpoint for all manner of grisly, unwanted and unwonted things to come to light. Depending on the severity of the scathing, Minoth himself might not even be able to remember this day very soon after it had occurred, and no one else would ever, but then, come a few months, it'd spring back into his mind, and then he'd be out of it.

And why, you may ask, are we being apprised of all this at this very moment, before the confrontation's even begun?

Because it's uncomfortable, and because it doesn't make sense, and because it is the routine.

It is always this way. Your observation makes no exception.

"I must confess," Amalthus had started, tone leant at a slight relaxed angle against the metaphorical wall, "I did not expect a visit from your...you."

Ah, and now the hole had opened, somewhere directly behind his Core. Maybe it was his own fear. Maybe it was Amalthus's disappointment. Didn't matter; either and both threatened to swallow him alive.

Addam made no move to exit the room, standing ground quite plainly, but he did jump to cover for his friend.

"Oh, yes, I'm sorry for intruding like this - I was passing through Indol on my way to Gormott, and saw Minoth, and asked him to show me around. My fault, really, don't think anything of it."

One white eyebrow, opposite those keen gray, slowly lifted.

"Be that as it may, Minoth still did consent to bringing you here. I don't see how I can blame you. After all, I wouldn't want Torna to think that Indol jumps so quickly to persecution of its guests when the fault lies...within our own quarters."

Against his will, Minoth met the gaze that Amalthus blankly set upon him. Was there suspicion there? Merely disappointment - something quite whole and natural, after it all - or shame?

Perhaps only resentment. Contempt.

When will it end? When will it be over?

"Well. If you're going, then why not take Minoth to help escort you? It is common knowledge that you haven't taken up any Blades - and, they're not here with you, even if you had."

Oh. Just like that.

Just like that?

It was still a punishment, and Amalthus knew into exactly which corners it painted both positive and negative; he gave up no unwitting advantage here. But as they walked out, Addam in the lead but only by a minimal margin, of course his shoulders stood up and back.

He wasn't sure if he cared if his Driver was watching. That, at least, was something he wouldn't bother to bring up later, upon the inevitable return.

Probably. Hopefully.

The grins only came out once they were well into the port, and mostly on Addam's behalf, with hands on hips.

"Well! That didn't go quite how I expected."

At last, Minoth brought his head up out of the constant taking of stock, and shrugged.

"Yeah? Me neither."

It was a step. It was something. He'd think about the next one later. Right now, he had some adapting to do.