Titles, Titles

This one's expanded from the original story excerpt, with the ending fluff turned up to and past eleven (well, as much as I can ever muster up before I laugh in your face and hand you pain). No one's getting any more than a little feathers-ruffled here, it's all about having a good, happy time. (I would tag "Rampant Adumbration" if I liked to invent new tags, but that's neither here nor there.) Still, this counts as canon-divergent from my own series, I suppose. Please enjoy!

"I'm happy to rely on you, Master Minoth!"

The cheerful quip grated on him long after the battle, short though it may have been, was over. It was like insult-salted-injury, having to ruminate darkly on his companions' generous words, and sweet young Haze's at that.

"Haze, mind sitting by me? Gotta ask you something." Evening time, and the fire crackling, camp homey as a sweet enhancement of the desert all around.

"Sure thing, Master Minoth. Is there a story you're working on? I'd love to hear it!" Minoth scowled despite himself as she trotted over to accept his invitation.

"I suppose it's rather like the gripe our beloved prince and I have when I use his title," he mused. "Oh, but he must know it's just sarcastic. I don't even have a continental affiliation, after all."

Haze, by this time seated on the adjacent log, was silent and quizzical, a combination uncharacteristic for her. He cut to the chase.

"Why do you call me 'Master', Haze?" Architect, he hated even speaking the word in such a context.

If she ever put a second or third thought to it - and he really thought that she must have, because none of them were that blithe, not even she - she didn't show it, offering only: "Why, it's simply because I respect you! You've seen much of the world, and clearly have consorted with many famous Drivers."

Minoth sighed, tched. "You well know I'm literarily-versed, so I won't pretend not to understand the nuances. Lora is your Driver, but Jin is your partner Blade. A true lady to you, and then one rather like a brother, perhaps. Hugo's an emperor, Addam's titled in his own right, sure. Aegaeon and Brighid are venerated..."

Here he paused. "You see what I'm getting at? I hate to call them servants, Haze, even where with a human I would. 'Servants of the Empire'; it sounds aright, and noble to boot. But casting Blades as servants to humans...it downright smacks of Amalthus and his ilkish influence." Haze's eyes became fierce at the passing mention. Let's...get back on track.

"Of course, then there's Mythra. You call her Lady Mythra when you've got the presence of mind, but it's more natural for you not to say it - and I don't think she's all that attached to a title anyway. Our cast may be small, but it's yet storied. I've gotta say...it gives me a lot to work with."

He waved a gloved hand. "Eh, doesn't matter. We're equals, Haze. If you call me 'Master' because I'm part human, well, not least does it do nothing to counter the rankling of my lowlife status. But more than that, it undermines the bonds we care so much to build with one another. These bonds weave the fabric of our lives, save them in battle and heal them in rest. If we work together, we work as partners, comrades. I'm no one's master. None but my own."

Minoth then realized that his incessant monologuing had pulled him out of concentration on his ever-captive audience. He uncurled his fist from where it had come stuck propped beneath his chin and crossed his arms over his chest, tilting his head to look over at Haze. And, at this time he forwent a "What say you?"; she could tell the pace of the moment, needed no direction.

Having gathered her thoughts, Haze replied, "I think I certainly agree with that, Ma- um, yes, that makes sense. I would never want to be bonded with a Driver who didn't respect me as a person, and only used me for my power, even though I've never known another besides Lady Lora."

Hand back under chin, Minoth struck at the thought. "Lora may be an earthside angel, but she's not one for high society." Haze giggled agreement, and the Flesh Eater thought then that he should count two up in that heavenly regiment.

"Regardless," and here she shored up her seriosity, "I just can't help but feel more proper addressing others as Master or Lady. Could it be that that's just my nature, what was formed in me when I awoke?"

Oh, making it preternatural now. That's...interesting. Because then what if you've got to respect, even kowtow to, someone who's a wholesale creep? Someone like Amalthus? Whether that very word is what binds you or not. "That's certainly possible. Though creating characters and stories are my domain, this I won't pretend to know."

Haze's final words were confident, warmed and whisking through her topic. "After all, my closest companion has always been Lady Lora, and I can't even call her by her name alone."

Finally breaking the pensive, morally pregnant mood, Minoth laughed out loud. "Hah! Now, I'm not saying we'll all have tea parties and braid each other's hair, but that's a start! That's a start."

To his surprise (and maybe even impending chagrin), Haze's eyes lit up, and she held up both fists in anticipation. "Oh, but could we, Master Minoth? Lady Lora's hair isn't thick enough for any fancy braids, and Jin won't let me touch his, though his seems awfully fine in texture anyway. I'm afraid to ask Lady Brighid, even if her hair wasn't on fire, and Mythra is...well, Mythra. Yours looks very soft - if you don't mind my saying! Could we please?"

As her benign tirade went on, Minoth would have expected Haze to become increasingly timid, but such was the excitement triggered by the prospect - he could tell that saying no would lead to more the semblance of puppy eyes than kicked dog.

And, as luck would have it, or again perhaps as it wouldn't, there was the meddling prince leaning in with eyebrow jauntily quirked. Minoth knew he probably looked more taken aback than was fitting with the cool façade he liked to present, but after all, hadn't he himself suggested, even propagated, the humanizing arc that was to be these giddy cosmetological affairs?

"We'll work on it, Haze. For now, I'll just...wrap my arm around your shoulder, if that's okay." A slightly out-of-character choice, but a warm one - that's a good way to err.

She smiled brightly, ignoring the tepid approach and moving the proffered arm out of the way to nestle beneath it against his side. "Titles I may not be able to grapple with, but your ether energy is much warmer than Jin's, and I hate being cold!"

Well, that's only the human blood, he thought despondently, but after shifting uncomfortably for a few brief seconds, Minoth found himself drawing in the reach of his arm in reciprocation. "Careful now Haze, you'll be breaking down all my boundaries."

Addam chuckled from a few paces back. "Well, Minoth, I can't quite decide whether to say I always or never knew you were such a cuddly teddy bear."

"This bear'll tackle you, clown prince." "Really? That sounds rather cozy - the more the merrier!"

Minoth thought this was a joke, a fair enough turnabout, of course he did, but then Addam was approaching his other side, and Lora had perked up and was scampering over, and Haze was leaning closer, and boy oh boy, they were really in for it, weren't they. He was in for it.

Time to mount a quick defensive. "You wanna let us up, first? These logs aren't the right setting for something like that." Once let up, you see, he could swiftly move away and pretend to have spotted a Berryhopper nest, their lack of presence in this region notwithstanding.

"Oh, so you've got a mind for the backdrop, have you? Don't worry abo--!" And then as Addam fell sloppily in next to him, arm about unoccupied shoulder, they all took a tumble backwards onto and into the dirt, log summarily overturned and useless. Forgotten, even.

They lay there silent in the rising dust for a single tick-tick-ticking minute. Aegaeon looked over at them and crossed his arms, seemingly stifling a laugh, and Jin also turned away from Mikhail and the pot containing whatever it was they were having for dinner for a moment to look. Hugo, Brighid, Mythra, and Milton were all preoccupied in conversation themselves, but Lora wondered nevertheless: "Do you think they'll join us?"

Mentally, Minoth groaned. Three was enough, even if they were all sweet (some, particularly the royal, overly much so) and well-meaning. And for once, Addam saved him from further embarrassment instead of plunging him deeper in.

"I rather hope they don't - I don't think we spend enough time with just these two, do you Lora?"

At that, Minoth had to smile as he pieced everything together. He and Haze were both the secondary Blades, and indeed the ones more prone to standard displays of affection from their Drivers (or rather, surrogates thereof), yet they both were fairly often off doing their own thing, and not always of their own volition. No need to get all bent out of shape about it, but he wouldn't begrudge Addam and Lora repaying a debt like this. Come on, old man, you can be personable. Even if you can't, they'll take care of that for you.

Haze had in fact fully turned over to lay her head on his chest by that point, Lora behind her tracing careful, familiar fingers around the patterns on her halo-like ribbon. The prince - his prince, and you could say it to yourself too if you weren't a coward, you repressed-up fool - had tucked his cheek up close to Minoth's, sideburns and all, and had finally succeeded in getting arms wrapped around collar.

It was all indeed too full-throttle saccharine, but you can do this, Minoth, of course you can. This isn't what Blades are for, is it? But Blades aren't for anything. They're just people. If you don't take care of them in the very same way, then you're not a Driver at all.

That being true didn't necessarily mean that Addam had to be defined as his Driver either, though. If and only if, necessary and sufficient conditions, and all that. And yet, when most people call a prince a prince, they're just talking about kingdomly allegiance, but Minoth hadn't practically ever been doing that. So let's invent a new category, a new archetype, and shelve it neatly away that Addam Origo was the Flesh Eater Minoth's prince, and no such distinction existed nor needed to run in the other direction.

And to keep talking of archetypes, stereotypes, there they were, rather unartfully meted out as prince, cowboy, priestess, and...

"How am I ever going to cast you, Lora? You don't match any one description well enough." (Just between you and me, of course, she didn't know that she was soon to be a knight. Hadn't hardly ever thought about doing so, either, because being a mercenary served just fine for the goals she wanted to achieve, the people she wanted to help.)

Lora laughed, didn't even pause to think. "I think I should be glad about that - and I am. Means I haven't stopped changing, stopped growing. That's how I know I can still improve. I have to."

Minoth smiled and moved his arms out from where they were likely trapped under various and sundry areas of armor's metal or vestments' cloth to wrap easily around their whole little party, Driver and Driver about Blade and Blade. "You're just determined to keep defying my expectations, is that it?"

"That's right! And I think I'm pretty good at it, too. You just don't know what to make of me," she answered triumphantly, wriggling her eyebrows with impunity.

Titles, titles, what you call a person and who they are. Would Haze ever not be the fiercely caring, gently healing young woman so tightly clinging to him in the middle of their flat-to-earth group hug? Unfortunately, he'd have to be around to see it, if she was. Alrest was big, but not that big. Even if he fell out of favor (by his own doing, that is, casting himself away into a corner), he'd eventually learn of where she was, and what she was. It was likely inevitable.

But if she was quiet, reticent, as she was remaining now, would she be silent, or would she be silenced? Volition of choice and the fact that she'd had such a benign and loving first Driver made it all the more heart-wrenching to think of it any other way.

So stop thinking about it, why don't you? Take your cuddle pile and be damned - be blessed, actually, because Haze, the first one and the one who was theirs, was here, and that was always, always a blessing.

But would it always be...? Stop! Thinking! (And by the time Jin stepped over to almost playfully nudge a foot into Addam's vulnerable side and say that the meal was ready, they were all asleep anyway, Lora and Addam snorers both. Can't think when you're asleep, now can you? So we end here.)

I apologize about the Oprah meme, I truly do. But it fits, doesn't it?

When Aegaeon laughs here it's the same as Dunban does when Shulk gets slapped (by who I won't say because that's crossing fandom lines, technically ;).

Haze best Torna girl, of course. (And Lora can be best lady, Brighid best woman, Mythra best gal, to avoid any fights.)

Read this. Please. It's sad, but it's really, really good (everything yoshizora writes is really, really good, but this...? augh, my heart and my soul).

Lastly, you'll have noticed that I marked this as yet another of my (in)famous gift fics. To be sure, I wrote this scene pretty long ago, as my timeline goes, round about the time of denouement and the like, and that was before I even knew (as an acquaintance, really) our beloved recipient, but I still think of you whenever I review it. A dedication, shall we say, because we are all love Haze, but in my mind it's usually you first of all. <3 <3 <3