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The trip to Azys Lla was, where U'mikke was concerned, an exercise in how often Sei could be made to curse the ancient Allagan empire.
The rate of 'bloody Allagans' to encounter had been subject to a linear progression right until they found the chimeras, at which point it plateaued because Sei needed that energy to process the concept of domestic applications of biomechanical monstrosities instead.
After that – to U'mikke's disappointment – it was briefly replaced by 'bloody Garleans' while they fought their way through what passed for a castrum when the imperial army has had less than a day to unpack their luggage.
It was more fun to watch her husband being salty about the Allagans than the Garleans, because while both are a menace unto themselves, Allag was a long time ago, and therefore merely dangerous in that distant, abstract way.
Like how you know that the consequences of procrastination is something future you will have to deal with, but present you doesn't need to give a damn. Because that's a thing that will happen to somebody else.
Even if that somebody is still, technically, you. But they aren't you yet, is the entire point.
U'mikke hadn't been to Syrcus Tower.
She only knew the Sons of Saint Coinach as those archaeologists who have rediscovered Allagan eikon summoning, and recruited Sei to be their arcanima-trained test subject.
To her, G'raha Tia had been simply that geeky historian friend of Sei's, who eventually went and did something stupid which had left Sei in a depressed stupor for weeks afterwards.
He never did tell her what actually happened, not in any meaningful form.
And anyway, she had been busy trying to get away from not one, but two groups of murderous mercenaries after what was supposed to be a peaceful spot of tea with the sultana while he was out playing explorer in Mor Dhona, so all she had wanted at that point was for him to stop sulking. He could be a dreadful nuisance when he was having a mood – and she plain did. Not. Have. The. Time. To humour him.
Salt, on the other hand, was a better look on him.
The part of her that was Fray positively purred at the young-blooded display of rage which Sei had believed to have outgrown. She hadn't seen him this alive since he had been a runaway teen, hands itching to set the world on fire.
“I am going to gouge Ser Bitchface's eyes out”, he suddenly announced while Midgardsormr was depositing them on the top deck of the Flagship, “and eat them.”
She gave him a questioning look, but without any particular zeal behind it. His train of thought often took him to the strangest of places if left unattended.
“For purposes of historical reenactment”, he clarified, like it explained anything.
Nevertheless, Fray made a little satisfied sound at the back of U'mikke's mind, like a rolling wave of thunder.
“We've killed so many people. I killed so many people”, he added after a pause. “But this is the first time that I actually want somebody dead.”
And U'mikke knew exactly what he meant.