the willow turns his back on inclement weather

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They fought the Jagron in the mid-afternoon, sun white on Haze's halo as she pounced with crosier ready to club into the nasty beast, and now it was a little later, lumbering on to dinner time. The kids milled, and the adults mumbled, and Minoth stood off to the side. No one quite knew how to deal with him, not least of all Addam - that is, not least on the not knowing. Most, in fact, somehow.

But, Addam Origo was nothing if he wasn't one to give it the old college try, so he took Minoth by the arm (met slight resistance, but only slight) and led him offeringly to the other side of the trail, into a small forested grove - quite opportune, really.

"So now you're here," came his first princely pronouncement, arms fidgeting between spreading wide and crossing up.

"So now I'm here," repeated Minoth. His arms hung uselessly, awkwardly. Ah. No ground given, there. And that says quite a lot about what we're up against, doesn't it.

If the bland, obliging tack wouldn't cut it, then perhaps something more cutting and argumentative would. A little unfortunate, perhaps even a little unpleasant, but there you have it: "You know, you didn't have to show off so much, back there. I know what you're capable of - you know that."

Sure enough, this got Minoth to cross his own arms and lean into the conversation. "Pot and kettle, my prince," he replied knowingly. "You didn't have to go on and on about how great you think I am either, I know what you think."

"Do you?" But Minoth ignored his prince's rare operative - motive, not emotive but questioning of emotions - question.

"Oh, and you with the 'despite the attitude' hogwash. She's her own Blade, Addam, how long are you gonna keep treating her like a baby?"

"Minoth, for all intents and purposes, she is a baby!" Addam cried out, sliding down to sit at the base of a nearby tree. "She's only a year old."

Minoth, in return, just scoffed. "And I'm only eleven. Childishness is as childishness does."

"Ah...hm."

"Hm?" Terms well and truly set, Minoth joined Addam there on the forest floor.

"It's really quite scary. She's never had a Driver, and I'm far from the ideal choice for her first."

Scoffed again. "Not about to tell me you think you're gonna do worse than my Driver did, are you?"

"Not a chance, Minoth! I've got my work cut out for me, there." A backwards idiom for a backwards idiot. Suits.

Well, no. It didn't. There was more than just surface-level buffoonery, here. It was an almost brutally brazen quantity of bluffing, that Addam should be so woeful one moment and so willful the next. Minoth was moody, yes, but in the...the moody way. The way that made you be in a moody sort of mood. You know.

It didn't bode well, really. If anyone was in charge of this group Minoth had stumbled upon, Addam was the one. Whether he and Mythra were deuteragonists behind or then again perhaps alongside Lora and Jin, whether rights would have it that the story should be told one way or another, Addam took a lead that, say, Hugo didn't. Credit to him? Maybe. Or maybe not.

"Prince, don't you...don't you ever get scared that we won't be able to do it? That Malos will win out?"

"Ah. 'We' already? You trust us that much?" And of course he had to; the banter flowed too easily from there for the situation to be anything but.

"I trust you, Addam. Always have."

Addam cocked his head, cast his gaze tentatively, yearningly, over the top of Minoth's cheekbones. "Always?"

Always. Back to the very first time we laid eyes on each other, I knew your love was gonna be a mighty big threat to all my self-hatred.

Not that I'll say so. Because I'm not so special. You're not so special. Right? Wrong. Oh...yes, you are. And I'd have to be, to be with you. But I won't say so. "As they say in my circles, you've got an honest face. You don't look like a rat like your uncle does."

"You met me long before you ever met my uncle," Addam mused.

Ruefully, Minoth shook his head. "That's not quite true. Amalthus took a fancy to him - of whichever flavor, and I don't feel like specifying any - sometime when...you must have been, what, fourteen? Sometime in my first year."

"That's such a long time ago...but I don't feel any older than you. It just feels like we've known each other forever - and if anything, you're the older one."

"Technically I am. I mean, I've gotta be, right? I don't look anything like Amalthus. Can't be my first rodeo."

"Malos doesn't look anything like Amalthus either, Minoth," Addam gently teased. "But I'm so glad you don't. You're much more handsome this way."

"'This way'? As opposed to what?"

"Oh, I don't know, being all...blue. I like you just the way you are."

Minoth didn't respond, only arched a decidedly non-blue eyebrow.

"Not that I wouldn't like you however you might happen to appear! Because it's what's in your head that matters, and your heart - or your Core, I mean, and-"

And then Minoth was still silent, yes, but his smile carried sound and presence; enough of a cue for Addam to rehead his course.

"What I mean," Addam began, reaching for Minoth's left hand and wrapping his own right around it, "is that I'm glad you're so different from him. And, I do think you're quite attractive, too, as a bonus."

"Yeah, so?" Minoth rolled his eyes, but didn't retract the stolen appendage. "Malos doesn't look anything like him either, just like you said, but he's sure enough got the crazy in him. I know you've met Amalthus, but you haven't really...met Amalthus. Putting that viewpoint on steroids is a recipe for trouble. The bad kind."

Surely. That bastards' brew had been enough to sink Coeia, flatten Feltley, and terrorize Torna at large - nay, all of Alrest, really - for a year going. You don't just do that on a whim and you don't even do it on a writ. Has to come from inside...deep, deep inside. Conviction like that is sterling hard to find.

So then, not so terribly bad, right? "Well, and if you put the nine of us together - eleven, I should say, can't forget the boys - that's a recipe for good trouble! Isn't it?"

And since we're still trading viewpoints something fierce, Minoth thought to himself, is that how you deal with it? You just...ignore it? Or, no, that's not ignoring it. That's having blind faith in the power of good over evil, and friendship and love and sunshine and rainbows. That's enough to make me puke.

"Aghh...you know, if I wasn't in love with you, I don't think I'd still be hanging around with you nuts. You're crazy, you know that?"

To cover his shock, Addam just grinned, squeezed Minoth's hand again. "Oh, knowing things, not knowing things. Shove off."

"I'm shoving, I'm shoving..." Minoth muttered, making to get up.

"Minoth." Addam stopped him with a quiet call of his name and a tug on his arm.

"Yeah?" The Flesh Eater turned back - as if he'd really been meaning to leave, and this was a last goodbye. Say it's not so, won't you?

"I am crazy about you."

There was something rather...ethereal about this conversation. Something unpinned, airy. Maybe that was reflective of Minoth's recently shifted circumstances. He wasn't alone anymore. Things weren't so cut and dry. Every day was a new experience. More to learn, more to share, more growing to do.

But, as ever, as ever, as ever, he made no indication that he'd noticed. "Clown."

"I hope that's a term of endearment?" Addam jabbed back as he stood up.

"Every damn word out of my mouth..."

Still holding hands. Gay of you, don't you think, men?

"Do you really mean that?" ventured Addam, timidly, without any of the shell of arrogance cast on. Not about the endearments, did he mean. No no, the idle, passive confession.

And Minoth knew so, but his answer was ambivalent, imprecise, regardless. What are you afraid of? "I mean, sure. You're a lovable type. 's practically your whole spiel."

"Well, but as far as I was concerned, your whole spiel didn't seem to be loving people."

What am I afraid of, indeed? Him? Amalthus? Malos? God?

No. I'm just afraid of myself, getting backed-up turned-around because I don't trust myself. And if Addam trusts me...good a place as any to start. Good a time as any to weigh in.

"Hey, what can I say? If you believe in a little good luck, anything can happen."

"You're getting sappy on me, Minoth! I thought that was my job."

"Addam. Thinking, knowing, believing, who gives a damn? I'm here. Ain't that it?"

"But you just said-- No, you're right. That's really all that matters, isn't it?"

Gotcha. "Sap."

"But I'm your sap!" protested Addam, barely able to keep himself from bursting out laughing.

"You son of a...oh, I missed you."

"Oh, well I'm glad! Or no, that's not right. I mean I'm glad that you don't have to miss me anymore. Or...something like that."

"Addam, do you get half this tongue-tied hanging around your band of merry men?"

"Can't say that I do. Must just be something special about you."

Still lingering away from the group, they were, but Minoth let himself indulge in it. After all, wasn't like he could be too sure of chances like this upcoming. Whether they won...or not. So: "Hmm...name it."

"What if I said it was the blue part of you? What would you do then?"

"The blue p- oh, you jackass." But then, wasn't it true? Afraid of Blades, he was. Of having them, anyway. Or rather, of resonating with them. Indecision, indecision, roundabout correction of indirection. Boys, boys...

"Is that affectionate, or derogatory, then?"

"It's me talking to you, Addam. Implicitly, it's both."

Implicitly. Would that everything were so easy, that anyone else could understand me so well without knowing a thing about me - and that is to say, without being half so clued-in as Addam here is, and he isn't even. He's as clueless as all the rest. Doesn't make too much sense, does it?

"You know, I don't think I've ever met someone quite so contrarian as you."

"You've met Mythra," Minoth pointed out, and damned unhelpfully too.

"Yes, well, I'm still getting used to her. And as for you yourself, as concerns her, I'm sure she'll come around eventually."

"What am I, the stepfather?"

"We'll see. We'll see..."

They started walking back, and Minoth threw an arm around Addam's shoulders. Probably held him a little closer than was strictly necessary, too. But we can't fault him, can we? "I can't escape the circus, can I?" Because we know he doesn't want to.

"Not unless you plan to leave me. And you're not planning to do that, I hope?"

"Never, my prince. Never."

Later, when Malos broke out with the "Howdy, partner!" song and dance, Minoth looked at Addam, and Addam looked at Minoth, and the prince's shoulders slumped as he caught the miming of a tipped ten-gallon hat from his Blade. More alike than they'd ever want to believe. But later than that, when Auresco got itself back to stable footing and their travels surged to the veritable bursting with memorable moments, tales for the telling, Addam looked at Minoth, and Minoth looked at Addam, and they both stood a little straighter, a little taller arm in arm.

So have faith, all of you - and you silly, silly men, in particular! Everything good comes in time. You just have to be ready for it. And you are, aren't you? Come now, don't turn your back on that!