Good Morning, Old Friend

It's only fitting, isn't it? You knew this was coming.

Up the tree they went, and children climb trees but Blades are never children and all. We needn't repeat it. Anger, scars, soreness, uncertainty, immaturity, it all bled. The introduction to the tree was brisk, alien, wholly unexpected. You never think that you can climb heaven.

But wouldn't you think that if you went up there, you'd find everything you're looking for? Don't you?

"Hm." was all Pneuma said.

"Hmmm?" Addam repeated, and she had absolutely no patience for those types of inane half-questions from him ever, but even now when he was justified and she was stabilized, it took some effort not to snap.

"Corrupted."

And Addam, who'd been confronted for years with the notion of things being half-blood, half-breed, set apart and set to wrongs with no promise of ever being set to rights, and yet who'd only just begun to grasp this true new breadth of Mythra's absolution and capabilities, understood immediately. He didn't scramble, didn't barter, didn't wheedle, just nodded. His shoulders, always so upright and proud, slumped down like twin scoops of ice cream falling flat and dumpy to the floor.

Pathetic. Aren't you just so, Mr. Origo? You're a flat fuck-up when it comes to Blades. You let this happen. You couldn't keep it under control.

But no. This...you knew this was a possibility. You knew that there would be some grim future in which your and Minoth's partnership would fall away to ugly dust. Does it really matter if it so happens that he's died before you and you're the one left with the memories? Even, isn't that better? Let's drink to your health, and then again let's drink to your wealth.

My good friend. My dear friend. My old friend.

My oldest friend.

Oh, Addam. You fool. You had everything, but you didn't deserve it. You knew that. So intimately did you know it - every morning you woke up and you couldn't believe it. So here and now, this is right. Now he can go and beget his own splendor anew. Not just can, he must. Of course he will. And of course he'll want to.

Of course. The irreparable has been exacted, now. There is no going back.

For his part, Minoth observed them with an expression not quite discernible, and it was obvious that an impulse had come to drop the gruffly crossed arms in service of something less closed-off, but that it was being ignored in favor of self-suffected security.

The ambivalent tear was not one of in-between intangibility. Minoth, the newly awakened Blade, was simply wrestling with the volatile, anti-violent temperament of his own emotional instability.

His own. For he was himself. None else in his body but him. No other influence but exactly his own. (Too old, must he have been, to get anything significant from Addam.)

"Can I ask how you know?" Addam ventured at last.

Pneuma nodded, cleared her throat, still not looking away from the screen and keyboard in front of her; its contents were blocked from the two men's view, and she'd disabled the mirroring to the larger console at eye-level. Patience. Trust, control, discipline, but most of all...patience.

"January 24, 2054." January? "Three o'clock in the morning, on the dot. Not epoch for Alrest, but a time six months beforehand. The time of Father's final presentation to the review board of his plan for the experiment that created this world. Chosen to represent the first harbinger of all the mistakes he would make, and the perfect yet uncanny connotation of being awake and agitated in the wee hours of the morning, creating something that when dawn arrives, you'd probably rather it didn't exist."

And was that why...?

Minoth spoke then, forcing his voice to coast above a mumble. "You said perfect. I guess it is pretty uncanny, the way it's flat on the hour, with no spare minutes. I would have chosen 3:17, or something like that."

She nodded again. "It's a pretty opaque signal, isn't it? This is what happens to all data here on Rhadamanthus that becomes somehow irretrievable by way of its checksum. Just like when Malos reset your Core, there's an incredibly fragile yet rigorous balance that the Blade data structures must maintain. Or rather, this is because of that."

Hubris. Dissatisfaction with the way things used to be, with where you used to be. Overconfidence in your ability to control a system that you did not create, no matter how instrumental you have become in its revolution.

But it wasn't his fault. Alrest wasn't hell, and he had had good intentions. Xander hadn't been angry, and he'd meant it when he'd said it - not that that boy hardly ever said anything he didn't mean. Malos wasn't repeating the mistakes of his father, only attempting to rectify those of Amalthus, whose hatred and ignorance had merely paved the way.

Or something like that. Minoth would know how to parse it. But Minoth wasn't here now. Not...not their Minoth. But wouldn't he have to be?

In all his fears of becoming a Driver - thoughts of power, and power dynamics, and tying a separate soul down to your one singular fate - Addam had never once considered the possibility of disrespecting the rebirth aspect to their nature. Blades were people, he thought, and people lived. Whether or not the Blades liked the specific interpersonal roles they were so often cast to be awakened into hadn't really been a point of contention in our fair Mr. Origo's individual sphere.

(Do you think they're happy? Autonomy is the word, I think. Are they really people? They don't get to grow up at all.)

"I...never apologized. Minoth."

"For what?" The Blade's tone was scarily gentle. Cautious. Unassuming. Irresolute.

That wasn't Minoth at all, now was it? At all!

"For insisting that you had to be the Blade I knew. That was wrong of me."

"Ehh, I don't..." The arms tensed tighter, and the ether lines flashed. "You're a human. It's normal."

"Oh, Minoth..." Addam didn't care how doeish his eye contact looked. Whether he liked it or not, he was going to have to be vulnerable with the very man in front of him. "But this isn't normal. And I have no earthly idea - or one that's suited to wherever the hell we are right now - how to do right by you. That may be par for every single course I've ever taken, but it doesn't mean it's right. And I hate to put that on you."

At last, the confidence shored up. Somehow, Minoth stood a few inches taller, and he cracked his neck and shook back the ponytail. "So don't. Torna's all jazzed about human-Blade equality, right? I don't want to have to get all tangled up in your foibles. I shouldn't have to answer to it. Just tell me if you're gonna return me to my Core, or not."

Addam blinked, felt the bat of his eyelashes and the way his skin crawled at the brush. Pretty boy. "I...what?"

"You were ready to shut me down before, weren't you? When you thought I didn't want to be out and about. So what's stopping you from doing that now? Obviously you don't want to deal with me. Obviously I'm just too much trouble."

If Pneuma, Mythra, could have paused the rotation around the world about them, she would have. In fact, she considered it.

She could see Addam biting his lip so hard it threatened to bleed, but stayed silent. This wasn't the same Addam who'd struggled to accept her, for the purposes of the war and then again through and around it and its. He was older, wiser, if a little softer. The world will not end for this. And neither will our microcosm.

Will it? "Minoth...who do you think you were to me, before?"

Shrug. Brutal, horrible, apathetic, egregious shrug. "I don't know. Knight-retainer? Something halfway in between heavy and confidante. You're a big enough guy, but you're plenty clownish. Probably didn't treat your Blade like crap, but I really don't think the whole family angle holds too much water, the way you've been acting. I don't think you ever trusted me."

"Hm." was all Addam said. Then he beckoned for Pneuma, grabbed at her hand, and led them out into the main control room. Lora and Jin, stood quietly conferring, noticed them first, and then Xander and Haze turned, followed by Flora and Malos.

"Is he...?"

"He's Minoth," said Addam. Just as he had said all those years ago. Firm, completely believing, completely proud.

A Blade? Indeed. He was. There he stood, cagey and calculating. Not for fear of being hurt, but for misestimation of the battlefield. Always know your opponents. Keep them closer than your friends.

But how close is that, when you haven't learned to embrace your friends? Your family?

"If I may?" Addam gestured with open hand for Minoth's assent. Jaw set, he gave it. Very well then.

"I was a prince of Torna. A bastard, yes, but a prince all the same. I married Flora, my best friend...only she wasn't my only best friend. You were there too, a guardian even though I seldom needed it, a familiar face in every foreign hall. You were everything anyone could ever ask for in a Blade. And you weren't even mine."

And thus, Minoth snorted. "Okay."

"'Okay'?" Addam's frown was pinpricked precarious. There was absolutely no script this entire episode had followed. The characterizations were jerkish, concerning. Where are we, and who and what are we? God only knows.

"Okay, so what?" Minoth began to clarify. "So I wasn't a heavy, exactly. So I followed you around like a puppy-eyed guard dog saying 'How are you, my prince?' and 'Anybody giving you a hassle, my prince?' So I was a groupie instead."

Pneuma bit her lip. Yes, in fact, he had. Not that she'd, Mythra'd, even been around at that time; literally, she'd been up here, away from any and all perception of humans, princes or otherwise, but his description was indeed painfully apt.

"You needn't be so standoffish, you know." They could have had worlds more trouble with that along the beaten path to Malos's initial defeat, but they hadn't, so it only went to show just how much of a jam they were in. And just which was that...?

"Oh, needn't I?" And Minoth's tone just wouldn't stop jabbing. "Pretty odd thing, for a Blade, to wake up and find everybody looking at him like he's not the one they wanted." Five jabs bordering on spits, were the last five words.

If he's said it, now you have to, Addam. Now you have to bare your heart, like you always thought you were so good at doing. But you were never very good at talking openly with him, even after it all, weren't you? So you're both pathetic.

Pathetic, to pathétique. "Minoth, I...I could never want anyone but you. Mythra was the first Blade I truly awakened myself, and I love her with all my heart, but for me, for..."

Seconds blinked past. Malos stood wary, Xander on the verge of tears, Flora squeezing both their hands tight. Too tight.

"I love you, Minoth, whether you remember me, remember why, or not. I think you can understand how much that hurts."

Not I hope, I think. I believe. I have my own convictions. I am not facile and green. And truly, it was you who helped me become the man I am.

A grimace crawled up onto Minoth's face, a veritable centipede of guilt and discomfort. "I don't...I don't want to hurt you."

Because he couldn't. Despite all manner of blunt show he put on, he couldn't manifest any real contempt for this his Driver who hadn't shown anything but fumbling insecurity to serve discredit underscoring his character. There was no hatred in the bond - a thing that came laced under, around and through, didn't need to be engendered by hand every time. They were connected, in a way that they never had been before.

Taking Addam as his Driver before had been a slow build-up of continuous, subconscious choice. But for all that was implicit and inautonomous now, one thing had always been real and true. Blades awaken again and they are the same but they are also so different. Are they really people? If they don't change at all within their lives, and from one life to the next. So there is growth. There is entropy. But one thing...one thing wouldn't change.

In his bones, Addam felt it. In the bond, Minoth felt it too. "You never have. And as long as I breathe on this Titan - no, this planet, isn't it? I will never let the chance come to me to hurt you. Seeing you happy, seeing you safe, that is all that will ever matter to me. For all of you."

Lora - I don't care what the governors think, you and Jin must always stay together. Jin - I don't care how much combat prowess you have, Torna will never usurp you to be used in a war that you do not wish to fight. Haze - I don't care how intriguing your powers are, we will never let you be stolen away to be used for ulterior purposes.

Mythra - I don't care how awesome your capabilities are, I will never again allow myself to pressure you into hating what your father gave you, for that burden from the outside in will only serve to bring you down. Malos - I don't care what mistakes you've made in the past, you are here with us looking towards the future, and that beyond everything is all that counts.

Xander - I don't care what changes you feel are necessary to help determine your own self, I will support you through every single one of them. Flora - oh, darling, you have stayed with me for all these years....even in my mind, I could not put it into words. Your love saves me above all.

But back to the statement, the promise. Minoth couldn't help but smirk at the incongruence, insouciant though it may have been. "Addam, you just punched me in the face."

"I know." And the poor little prince let himself smile too, let himself in at the opening. "I won't be doing it again! But I will hug you, if that's alright."

As he did it, Addam realized what had been missing in this most recent journey: he did not feel himself standing head-level with Minoth, and they were only a few inches separated in height. You have allowed yourself to be cowed, Addam. You have allowed yourself to be stood down against a future that will only be more unkind to you if you do not rise to the occasion.

Straighten up, my prince. Have faith. Be boisterous again. Be avuncular, be jovial, be so obnoxiously loving. Your exuberance is far from the least of what binds us all together.

Back down they went, and Minoth let Addam lay an arm over his shoulder the whole way, the other hand quietly occupied in Flora's steadying grasp. Azurda watched, head bowed, and he didn't regale with the old stories as he had done with Ornelia. Minoth was no one to feel inadequate, but he was one for knowing the moment. Let us all learn from him, hmm?

They went home. In some ways it felt empty, and in others it felt more full, more stable, more congruent. No matter what it felt like, it was their future. There is no return to the past.

No memory. No repository. No way out, no way through, but forward.

Addam would wake up in the morning and see his old friend and want to ask, "Minoth! Written anything good recently?" but, truly, Minoth didn't have anything to write about. Good, or not.

With that in mind, then, he'd stow the expectations, the affable but surface-level show of solidarity, and would simply lay a hand on the Blade's forearm, thankful for another day that, in any form, they were together.

"Good morning, old friend. I've been thinking about you."

The creation date on the corrupted folder is referencing both the date of the battle in Xenoblade Chronicles X that most directly precedes the events of the main story, as we are given only 20XX for Klaus's experiment in Xenoblade 1/2, as well as the date registered for corrupted folders in Apple's macOS: January 24, 1984, at 3:00 AM.