Mithos

When Mithos takes awareness that night in the dreamspace, it's with confusion, because this is a thing he and Lloyd don't normally do. Confusion settles into understanding, however, as he processes a presence in here that isn't him, and isn't Lloyd.

He couldn't mistake his sister anywhere.

"You know, I assumed you were already in here," Martel says, as she steps into existence next to him, bare feet touching against glass. She's painted the place she calls home, but knowing home for her is somewhere that Lloyd wouldn't like seeing, Mithos shifts the image into an old standby, a field of grass under a blue sky. Martel looks at him, weighty, but doesn't comment. He almost wishes she would.

"Me and Lloyd try to avoid it," Mithos answers, crisp. "Why are you here?"

"Wanted to get to know your driver a little better, since you seem so fond of him."

The question is a little needling. Mithos bites his lip, sitting on the ground, and doesn't look at his sister. He's not a fan of keeping secrets from her, but Lloyd is actually our brother and Kratos is god and also our father is just more than he knows how to Tell Her, so he hasn't. He probably should, but--

"Hey, Lloyd," he says, looking up at his brother, grateful for the excuse to not explain things to Martel just yet.

The inn is completely empty at least so Mithos is able to find a room that no one is using right now and hide himself away inside of it, sitting down on the floor with his back to the wall, and this won’t be the most comfortable position but he’s too angry to lay down and ultimately, with the dreamspace, it doesn’t matter, he’s not actually falling asleep he just needs to leave his body in a position that isn’t going to backfire on him when he stops watching it, anyway, anyway.

Mithos throws himself into the dreamspace. He throws himself in there, and then he reaches for the core of the blade network, and he pings it furiously, reaching, reaching, knowing that this probably won’t work but it has to. It has to. So he reaches and he pings and at the top of his lungs he screams: “Father!! Answer me, Father!!”

Father touched his dreamspace, the other night, so there has to be a way to do this, to talk to him. Mithos pings louder, the loudest signal he’s ever sent, and--

The dreamspace shifts. The sunny plain that Mithos had painted by default suddenly becomes stars and glass, a place that Mithos has not seen in centuries, outside of his dreams.

His father is there.

The Architect sits-- and there’s a second here, where the dreamspace cannot seem to make up its mind. Is he sitting on a chair? Is it really Derris-Kharlan around them? Mithos catches glimpses of first a forest, then something that might have been a house, and then… Then it is Derris-Kharlan again, and Mithos’ father the Architect stands, does not sit, in the middle of the city, glass buildings rising on every side of them. He looks distinctly uncomfortable, arms crossed over his chest under that locket he wears, head turned away and down so that his eyes are hidden behind his hair.

“Hello, Mithos,” he whispers.

Mithos doesn’t have time for pleasantries. Hands clenched into fists so tight it hurts, he says, slow and furious: “What do you know about Martel. Are you responsible for--”

The Architect nods once. “I talked to her,” he whispers, in explanation. “I asked her. Before I. She wanted me to.”

He can’t seem to say it. Isn’t that fucking hilarious?

But. Mithos holds onto his anger, swallows his laughter. Of course Martel asked-- or at least, agreed. If it meant getting out of the cannon, Mithos probably would do the same. He thinks he should probably be glad his father helped at all, after hundreds of years of silence, of not caring. It was reckless, and stupid, but he freed Martel.

Wait.

“You spoke to her?” Mithos asks, hopeful as the words click in his mind.

His father nods. “She’s alive,” he answers. “She’s… They fused her, with Colette. They’re both alive. They’re both…”

He can’t seem to finish. Mithos barely registers it, barely thinks to ask how his father knows Colette’s name. Mithos remembers to breathe, for the first time since Anna had delivered the news. Martel’s alive. Father spoke to her. Things are… okay. Or, closer to it. He clings to the knowledge that Martel is alive, clings to the relief that the cannon cannot hurt her. Someone else has her, someone else is driving her, and that’s not good, but.

Killing one human to save her is going to be a lot easier than trying to get her out of that cannon.

“Do you know where she is?” Mithos demands.

The Architect shakes his head.

“Do you know who’s driving her?”

The Architect shakes his head again.

“Useless,” Mithos hisses. Whatever. He can figure that out without his father’s help. He’s managed this long without it, anyway.

“I wish I could do more…” the Architect begins, but Mithos shakes his head. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.

“Why did you do that to Zelos?” he demands, instead, taking a step towards his father. His anger hiccups in his core, sharp and wavering. “I was right there, Father.” He pounds at his chest. “You could have channeled the ether to me!”

“I…” the Architect protests, taking a step back.

Mithos steps towards him again, so he’s right in his father’s face. “I could have survived that much of your ether!” he spits, furious. “I could have controlled it better, so it didn’t haphazardly raze the whole building and nearly kill us all!! I was right there!!”

His father blinks at him, slow and guilty. That expression makes Mithos furious, up until his eyes meet the Architect’s.

…have his father’s eyes always been that shade of red? That shape?

“I’m sorry,” the Architect whispers, and Mithos is slammed back into the real world.

Mithos shakes his head, blinking rapidly against the vertigo of waking up so abruptly from the dreamspace. “What the fuck,” he whispers, first confused, then furious. “You bastard!” he spits, shooting a glare up at the ceiling, and then past that. “You didn’t answer my question!!”

He doesn’t get a response. Of course he doesn’t.

(He’s furious and hurt, still feeling somewhat betrayed, but then again—betrayal at the hands of his father isn’t something really new, to Mithos. It’s still sharp, like a knife in his core, buried deep and aching, but that ache is wrapped up in bitterness, because of course it’s still like this.

He’s furious and hurt and bitter, but he’s a little more sane. Martel is alive. Martel is alive, and Father spoke to her. It’s going to be okay.)