User blog comment:Miskos3/Fairy Tail Chapter 488: The Two of Us, Always, Review/@comment-5.41.202.43-20160607071711/@comment-7418318-20160607072401

The problem isn't that Mest tried to kill August in itself.

It's the timing and the sloppiness. If you try to kill someone in an ambush make sure you hit so hard as to kill them with the first blow, so they won't get the chance to fight back. Instead of implanting Brandish with thoughts to make a sure kill-move like stabbing the heart or crushing the brain, he left her with some wishy-washy general statement that ended up making things far worse.

And then there's the timing. He tried to kill August at a moment when it looked like the negotiations might actually succeed. If he had made his kill attempt sooner (before August agreed to talk) or later if and when the negotiations seemed like they might fail, it'd be fine. But at this very moment where things looked the most hopefull... sure it was the most impactful time from the out-of-universe perspective, but from the character perspective it was just damn stupid.