Why are you, as a man, bonding with a male Blade?
The thought came to them rather immediately, all things considered. Amalthus was on an intellectual bender, pontificating about this plan or that for the systematic integration of other Titans' governments into the greater influesphere of the Praetorium, and Minoth and Malos, partners in destiny and in dating, shared conspiratorial glances as his diatribe dribbled on.
Does he really mean all this? Is he still the same man who stood on that cliff holding a baby and pronounced the whole mortal world to be hell? Do you believe a word of his fake-ass care about the refugees for an Architect-damned second?
"Are either of you even paying attention?"
No, they weren't, they were staring at each other and probably running hands through each other's hair with their eyes, but neither revealed as much. "'Course we are," reassured Malos in his most earnest, good-little-soldier tone, at the same time as Minoth languidly offered, "Have no doubt. You're doing a wonderful job, by the way." In response, their Driver just scowled.
(Oh, Architect. Are these really the servants you intended? I'm too afraid to awaken the emerald Core, really. Heaven- yes, Elysium forbid if I were to walk in on an orgy. I shudder even to posit it.)
By and by, Amalthus excused himself, having grown tired of the twin bored looks decorating the Flesh Eater and Aegis's faces as they leant in mirrored postures with cheek propped on fist, elbow laid over chair's backrest. If we were to have any sympathy for the Quaestor whatsoever, we might say that the scene looked like, say, a music student trying to explain to his lovable yet gullible jock friends what the key of F-sharp minor was and why they should care, only the milieu was far and away removed from something so simple and harmless as them being too stupid or bull-headed to understand.
And then when Minoth said, "You wanna get out of here? I happen to know a guy," and Malos said, "Yeah, sure. Me too, actually," they both looked at each other and thought, you don't just "know a guy" at all. Gayass.
"Okay," said Malos, straightening up in his chair (again, no back against which to lean, but the sheer bulky structure of his frame made that mostly unnecessary). "I'll bite. Who is he?"
"Who is he?" Minoth parroted back, tone all too liquid. "Are you jealous, darling?"
Aegis's bulkiest arms crossed: "Uh, yeah, I fucking am. Come on, who is this guy?"
Suddenly apprehensive, Minoth bit his lip. Okay, well... "He's the prince of Torna." No need to say "a", or "the fourth in line". The one and only would do it.
"Prince?" That got a rise, both physical and emotional, out of Malos, but he steeled himself back down soon enough. "Okay, sure. This that Origo guy?"
No fooling? No fooling. So Malos wasn't entirely tunnel-visioned in to being unobservant of the Praetorium's visitors. "Yeah..." And so they traded a little, in hang-dog airs and victorious smugness. Fair enough. Even...
"Great. Stellar, you might even say. I see your silver-haired macho man and I raise you MY silver-haired macho man."
"Your what?"
Oh, like cats, they were. "You've got a prince, I've got a paragon. You ever heard the name Jin?"
"Jin? You don't mean from Torna?"
"Oh, shut up. Yes, from Torna. The golden country, and all that."
"So?"
"So?"
"How'd you meet him?"
"Oh, I don't know," Malos said vaguely with a wave of his hand and a roll of his shoulder. "Just...around."
"I didn't say where, Malos," Minoth prodded, "I said how. You know, how's a nice guy like him end up with a rotten guy like you? Or!" he exclaimed as Malos made to swat in at his Core Crystal and he leaned away in response, "or a nice guy like you with a rotten guy like him. Look, how would I know? I've never met the man!"
At that, the other Blade positively sneered, curling lips and twisting eyebrows and all. "You stink."
Despite his apparent disgust, however, Malos then revealed that he'd been on Spessia with Amalthus, and just before they'd decided not to attack this locale in particular, a red-haired woman had stormed up to the Aegis and been about to give her two, or three or four or five or seventeen, cents on the matter. Her Blades had been stood behind her, too nervous to pull her back, and Malos had locked eyes with the taller one and, in a rare moment of on-the-job unprofessional behavior, licked his lips, almost imperceptibly, and set his eyebrows along with his new personal target.
"So it's like a rivalry thing?" As he rolled out the inquiry, Minoth stood, swept his chair back under the desk from whence it had come, and motioned for Malos to follow him out of the office. "You've never even talked to him, but you decided you were gonna compare dick sizes anyway? Just telepathically?"
"At least I can get that across - what could you possibly even have with this human? Prince. Heh. What a bunch of bull."
"It was a long time ago, actually. Back when I got this." He tapped sagely at the jagged scar with the hand not holding Malos's as they walked. "It was in Uraya - the stomach, I think - and I was squaring up with an Anlood. Addam jumped in front of me to try to help me out, but he was so off balance that he basically missed, and swung his sword directly underneath the beast's legs as it lunged for me."
"Idiot," snorted Malos.
"No you," answered Minoth. "Anyway. I got a swipe right over my eye, here, and fell back into one of the pools to boot. Addam jumped in to save me, which I may or may not have needed him to do considering my recently inflicted incapacity, and..." he spread the gesticulating arm wide, "the rest is history."
Here, Malos just blinked. "That's it?"
"What do you mean, 'that's it'? At least I've actually touched the man - you're over here having eyesex with a Blade who has nothing to see but his eyes, considering he was wearing a mask."
"Minoth. You know it as well as I do: humans are idiots."
"Well, idiot or not, I'm alive today, and with my respiratory system more or less intact, because of him. Honestly, sometimes I think my socks are still wet."
"It's not gay if you're wearing socks," Malos said automatically, just to completely derail things even further.
"I-- What? Never mind. It IS gay, and I'm NOT taking off my socks. So there."
"Whatever. Just don't ask me to call him my prince."
"Hey, fine by me. You wanna leave any last words for our dear old Driver before we ship out?"
"Last words, huh? How about his last words?"
"You want to. Kill him?"
"Sure. One last murder for the road."
"Malos, you've never killed anybody."
"And don't you just love me for it?"
"Maybe I do, maybe I don't. What's the modus operandi here?"
"The what?"
"And to think I thought you knew everything...anyway. How are you going to do it?"
Malos thought for a moment. Well. He'd never quite considered that. He'd always gotten right up to the moment of destruction, and then been turned away from it, for one reason or another. One reason, or, another...
"I could cut his head off with my sword. Right? That should work, enough to be fatal."
Minoth shook his head. "No go. Humans bleed - whether his blood is red or blue, I don't know, but that seems a fair bit too messy. Can't you just smite him, or something?"
Call upon the angry purple fire, the lord's divinated herald of death? Easy. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. "Sure. I can do that."
"Your hand can do it, and your Core, but what about your head? You really need this?"
"I mean, I don't, but...hell, Minoth. I'm afraid of what he might do. Even without us."
Malos, the Dark Aegis, the Architect's own Endbringer, afraid? "Fair enough. There's a cargo ship leaving for Torna after midnight. He's usually asleep well before then."
"I hate that you know that."
"Which schedule, man or machine?"
"Both. Because you are both, and...fucking hell, I hate you."
But, regardless. They dealt with the vile Quaestor one quick-shot way or the other (whichever you think flashiest and most effective), snagged the emerald Core to boot, strolled out of the sanctum like it was nobody's business - and it wasn't, practically, not anybody's but their own - and got on going to Torna.
"So what, we're just going to show up at his house?"
"I know where to find Addam. Do you know where to find this Jin of yours?"
"Yeah, I'll...I'll ping him."
"Your Driver, then?"
"I will kill you."
"And I will dare you to."
So away they went. No, it doesn't make sense. But get this: it doesn't have to.
Meanwhile, in Lasaria...
We find Jin, fingertips to forehead and mask removed in a feeble attempt to ameliorate the brutal pulsing in his Core. "Hold on! I'm getting something..."
"What is it!?" (This from Lora.) "Are you okay?!" (This from Haze.)
Jin stood stock-still for a good while longer, processing whatever it was that was assailing his neurons, before finally relaxing somewhat.
"It's Malos...you know that Blade we met? He wants me to meet him in Aletta."
Lora eyed him, wary. "And we're just going to...go to Aletta. To meet your fling. Who you never even spoke to once."
"Doesn't Prince Addam live in Aletta?" Haze piped in. "He might have some clue as to the whereabouts of your mother, Lady Lora!"
"Prince...Addam." Queasiness shot like a whip into Lora's stomach, and it was visible on her cheeks as well. "Haze, don't you know by now that we always avoid situations like that? No," she shook her head, "I know you know, and I know you know why."
"But Lady Lora," Haze began to insist, "just think how wonderful it will be! A prince's manor - surely we'll be safe there! After all, I don't think anybody Jin trusts would ask us to go somewhere it wasn't safe."
Jin and Lora both jumped in in tandem: "Haze..."
"What? I say we're going. Are you with me?"
Each had an entirely separate agenda from the others, but they still went together. You know. Of course they did.
Neither party met with all that much resistance upon arriving in the as-yet-unpopulated garrison outside the estate. The moor was quiet too, with only a lone Gormotti boy plying his trademark pastime of Tirkin talking to be spotted upon it.
"So this is it, huh? I suppose Malos could have picked a worse place to bring you for a first date, right, Jin?" Stretching her arms behind her back and bouncing up on her heels, Lora found herself less concerned with dastardly political dealings now that she saw how homely the place looked.
And then, just as Jin was about to answer, and just as Malos was about to bound out from the harbor across to where the spunky travelers three stood, Addam appeared and hailed down for Minoth, and that was where it all truly began.
You're looking well, Minoth, Addam probably said, and you don't sound so bad yourself, my prince, Minoth probably said back, and Malos rolled his eyes but privately thought it and them both was at least a little bit cute, all things considered, and then he considered Jin again and decided that he didn't really care.
Their host lord, too, seemed to have eyes only for the other aforementioned silver man, at first. "Well! It's nice to finally meet you, Jin. You know, I don't think you've been seen in familiar circles for almost the entire time I've been alive - maybe longer. That's quite an impressive stretch of invisibility, I must say," Addam added with a gamely stroke of his chin.
"I, ah...thank you. I think. But," and here the Paragon gestured at the Flesh Eater and the Aegis stood behind him, similarly singular but each very much so in their own special ways, "what does that mean for the three of us?"
"It means where do you want to sleep!" Addam exclaimed in answer.
Beneath the cover of Jin's just-broad-enough shoulders, Malos looked at Minoth, and Minoth looked at Malos, and then the Flesh Eater turned a disgustingly fond face on the silly prince. "I don't mind, wherever," was all he airily said. Whatever that will mean.
"Ah, well, this place is certainly very nice," Lora put in timidly, some of her regular trained-in apprehension creeping and cropping back up. "Your wife must work very hard."
"Oh, Flora? No no, we're not married. I'm sure some people - quite a few, in fact - up in the capital must think we are, but...no. She's only ever taken a fancy to me as a joke. We're simply best friends!"
And to herself, Lora then thought, so what you're telling me is she's available?
As if on cue (hush now, I can do what I want, and I very often do, in fact), there appeared a petite lady in fine flush pink Tornan dress, boots swift and sure on the cobbles.
"Hello," said Flora. "Oh, I, uh...hello," said Lora, and thus they were acquainted.
The group stood then for a few idle moments, just contentedly observing each other and making vaguely conversational noises of the sort that make you feel like you're not actually listening to real people talk, only a simulation of them that's been white-noise-hosed for far too long.
So Lora, once again, came up with something to break in, on multiple fronts: "Oh, what should we call you, then? If you're not married."
Flora smiled, wrinkled her nose at the awkward but endearing question, and tapped a finger to her chin. "Well, technically my last name is Hentisane, but everybody calls me Lady Origo anyway. I see no reason why you shouldn't just call me Flora, Lora?"
Well. Even the proudest of independent mercenaries' knees have to go weak sometime. Jin, perhaps a little hypocritical in his parental role, just stood back and shook his head. Get it together, Lora. If I can get some, then you certainly can. Sure enough, Haze elbowed him to express her disapproval in or at the same.
And what happened after that? Probably, nothing much of substance. The men quibbled about the other Aegis Core for a matter of minutes, and Flora and Lora looked at each other and thought, how silly are they, a Blade's a Blade, and if Malos is still here and walking then it can't matter too terribly much, so the former snatched it up directly with the latter's encouragement, and thus awakened Mythra.
Now Haze, feeling ever so slightly left out of things when everyone else had seemingly been summarily paired up, took one look at Mythra and said, this, here, this is the pretty girl I was meant to hold hands with, and we'll roast marshmallows and braid each other's hair and we're both Blades and we're both ladies - why, call us Bladies!
She approached a little later in the afternoon: "Lady Mythra?"
"Huh? Just...call me Mythra. You don't see everyone walking around here calling Malos 'Lord Malos', do you?"
"Ah, no, I..." She hadn't been paying all that much attention, if she was being honest, which Haze did very often like to be, but never mind that. "Just Mythra, then. Did you want to come with me to help Mistress Flora and Lady Lora with dinner?"
Lacking any other idiosyncratic device, Mythra inspected the fingertips of her gloves, ran her tongue over her teeth, then nodded. "Sure. I bet I'd be an ace at it."
And they locked hands in hands, trotted gaily into the kitchen, and had overall a lovely time, independent of any stereotype about ladies in the kitchen and men in the den.
"You know," Lora began, mildly thoughtful, "I had thought Jin would want to come in with us. He's always been a terrific cook."
Flora just shook her head over the din of water spraying in the sink. "If I know Addam and Minoth, which I do, they're probably having some argument about old anecdotes, with more to write down and bastardize being spontaneously generated all the time, and your Jin and Malos will be half listening and half paying absolutely no attention. Men will do that, you know."
Men will do that. Huh. Really? With Amalthus put on ice and likely none of the Praetorium leadership actually all that bothered about it, things would have the chance to settle down, at least a little bit. Malos had abandoned his so-called purpose fairly readily, given ample enough distraction in the form of kindred spirits who challenged him to think about other things, other motivations and interests he might have, or eventually develop, and all was well with the world.
"I don't get it," Mythra said, shaking her head. "How can they be so content just to sit around wasting time, all sausage-party-style?"
"Well." Lora crossed her arms, eager to abandon the vegetable peeler which already looked to be a lethal weapon once laid into her suddenly not-so-capable hands. "I've known Jin for long enough, I think. There's really only one reason why a man would bond with a male Blade."
"Oh, what's that, Lady Lora?"
"Ahh- no, don't tell me," Mythra muttered. "I'll just...find out on my own."