Walking With You...2!
Flora knows from holding nervous hands along a promenade through the Tornan bluffs, quelling petty anxieties with warmth and focus. Flora knows from protecting those that need a little shepherding. Flora knows from being the effortless but ever-conscious beacon in a throng.
But Addam and Minoth, staunch and storied individuals that they are, shouldn't need any particular shepherding. They should be sufficient just as they are, noble and defined and even refined, on the odd occasion.
They are human, however, indeed, and they do need her.
Minoth was apprehensive, at the start - it was Addam and Flora's tradition, after all. Indeed, it was Addam and Flora's moor, upon which to walk. And even the most adventurously-mooded and -minded would agree that Dannagh was not the place, nor hardly ever the time. The walks Minoth took in a place like that were of a different nature entirely.
Addam had cajoled him mightily with this and that sundry banter, in order that Minoth might take his own opportunity to break in to the pattern. Stuff about how they might want a bodyguard, or there might be insects along the way, or it's lonely in the manor all alone, isn't it?
Flora doesn't have the patience for that, she'll admit (when pressed). Though she understands the delicate balance Addam has sworn to himself to keep, her opinion is that it's swifter to topple when left to teeter than if taken in hand - hand in hand in hand, that is to say!
"Well, we're going, and we will miss you," she says, matter-of-factly and in her best attempt not to be coy. There's something peculiar about that untraditional (or else, most traditional) way of saying that you missed someone - missed you last night, didn't think about you emotionally, but missed you from the group, noticed that you were gone. So we will notice, and we will think of it, even if we don't speak of it.
With that, Flora holds out her hand for Addam to take, which he does, stowing any lingering mopeyness and tossing his other in a sailor's wave to Minoth, who yet stands there with his arms hanging awkwardness. They pretend not to notice him, and begin instead (not obviously, never obviously) leaning into each other and meandering their steps up the parlor stairs and out into the manor yard.
"That was a little mean of us, wasn't it, Flora?" Addam asks, flexing his fingers around Flora's delicate but strong, and ever cold, palm. He thinks they've gotten it right this time, no messing about with overs and unders and one arm quite short agin one arm quite long.
Flora, in turn, braces her wrist against the one bony part of Addam's that yet sticks out even though his forearms are stout and thick. "You think we're bullying him? If we are, I rather think he deserves it."
"He hasn't done anything wrong," Addam replies reproachfully. He takes the first step off of the milita yard's stone onto grassy earth above Titan's own stone, purposefully lifting his foot to slow Flora's smaller steps that she might not trip (she clings again onto him in gratitude). "He's had a hard go of it. It just goes to show how much he appreciates us, actually - that he doesn't want to intrude."
"That's so, Addam," Flora says, smiling at how Addam's analysis rather recalls something measured she'd say herself, "but I can't bring myself, then, to disrespect his own ability to choose what it is he wants, now. So, if he wants to come along, he will, and we can and should do no more than invite."
"Well...but don't let's stray too far from the house, then? In case..."
"My prince?"
The call is carefully coached so as to avoid a crack in Minoth's voice as he sends it some twenty peds to reach those to whom he acts as courtier and whom he would like to court. Addam's neck hitches as he turns back toward the sound, but Flora does no more than unwrap her left hand from around Addam's bicep and extend it back for Minoth to catch and accept; she doesn't need to see his sheepish look or the crestfallen shape of unconfidence to know that they've just come together, here.
"It's quite a lot of trouble, isn't it, Minoth? If only she'd have deigned to wait for you."
Minoth groans. "If you weren't so cruel, you'd just have said 'took you long enough' and left it at that."
"Now, boys, no fighting," Flora preens, even if it is trite, with both of them close at her sides. "I'd like to go see the Flamii, if you would?"
"If you ask me, we've got enough proud pink birds here as it is." Now Minoth mirrors Addam's sidelong, ever-so-slightly calculating glance, but just out of one eye, to see if he's just spelled his own doom.
Flora doesn't acknowledge the bait. "And where would you go?"
Even on a gently overcast day, where the sun would be a lucid glint at this shy hour of the afternoon, rays beam brightly off of Addam's face. Flora smiles, content if not simply victorious, and when she squeezes Minoth's hand, he has the dear charm to squeeze back.
Minoth is markedly unused to the task of timing and spacing his steps to the gait of another - and well he, the master of his own initiative, should be. Addam realizes, with a casual look over, that he doesn't have a genuine memory of Minoth walking, with ease and patience. Minoth is always either running or crouching, always splayed in some sort of stance.
It's Flora that grasps both of their hands with renewed purpose and draws out enterprising strides that make their walk into more of a procession, a parade of mutual happiness for only the Armu to see. Minoth, so concentrated on her, stumbles over a rock and adds his free left hand to the hold without thinking.
Oh... "Anywhere, with you."