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Waking up felt like crashing through glass. Every part of his body felt like it was being cut when he tried to move it, tiny incisions over new skin, cold explosions as new blood started to flow, shards choking down his throat as he breathed with new lungs.
And oh was it new, even within the numbness and the pain Sorey could feel the fundamental differences. It felt like he was a snake shedding his old skin except he was shedding his previous body, previous humanity.
A short thought flashes through his mind: was this what Mikleo felt like when he was a baby?
Becoming a Seraphim was equal parts painful and just plain uncomfortable, like simultaneously dying and going through puberty, it’s coming to life in a whole new and inexplicable way.
In a way it explains a lot of Mikleo’s behavior from when they were very young. When they had been three and four respectively Mikleo had been a huge crybaby, he clung onto Sorey chubby baby body with a death grip that ended up choking Sorey more than anything most times. Anytime Mikleo was left alone he would burst into tears and start screaming until someone would come to him and even then Mikleo was the fussiest toddler, everything seemed to make him upset.
When Sorey compares what he’s going through currently to that time he gains a new sort of sympathy for his friend. Younger Sorey had never understood Mikleo’s fussiness even though he always did his best to comfort his friend. Sorey, as a pretty much grown adult, wants to throw a temper tantrum himself. Part of him really hopes that the discomfort doesn’t last for years like it seemed to for Mikleo but there’s only so much he can hope for when he’s literally becoming a different species. The fact that Mikleo had only experienced his discomfort for a few years was probably lucky considering in Seraphim years it wouldn’t have been much more than a blink of an eye or something.
Oh, how those seventeen years had felt like an eternity. Just Mikleo and him and Eylsia, dreaming and exploring and discovering the world together; and then like a knife that time came to an end, replaced with what felt even longer, safety long forgotten as they plunged into darkness and malevolence together doing their best to remain untainted. And they did, despite the costs…
Those seventeen years had been Sorey’s entire life and he wonders if Mikleo had felt the same, or had the time gone too fast for him? How did Mikleo experience time? Did he perceive time differently than Sorey did?
Sorey opens his eyes and it feels like he’s ripped off his eyelids.
How much time has passed?
Here he was daydreaming about Mikleo when he needed to get up and go meet him! Mikleo had promised he would wait and Sorey feels guilty enough for having him wait at all much less however long he was sleeping.
Sorey struggles to move himself, to stand up, to run, and yet all he can manage to produce is a painful twitch. Sorey tries to look around to see if he can get any help but all he sees is blinding light all around him. It occurs to him that he’s floating as well. Sorey feels a dull panic rise up through him. The nothingness around him roars in his ears and he realizes he had only start being able to hear just now. Sorey realizes that his senses are slowly returning to him. The first one must have been touch, the second sight, third hearing… Sorey hopes that no squires are in any situation that would require his senses currently, that his awakening doesn’t endanger anyone else.
Sorey takes a shaky breath and he tastes the untainted saliva in his mouth. There’s taste… Sorey tries to move his face around despite its incredible stiffness, stretching his jaw as he tries to move more or at least say anything. He doesn’t like the helplessness, the not being in any control of his body despite being fully conscious, paralyzed.
He has to get up, it’s not like he hasn’t slept enough.
How long had it been? A few years? A decade? A century? How long does it take to purify a god-like seraph like Maotelus? Was Maotelus purified at all? This whole plan was a gamble at best in the first place, did Sorey’s sleep actually solve anything? Why was Sorey turning into a seraph in the first place? Did he fulfill some sort of requirement needed to become a seraphim from a human or was it something more morbid like… he’d slept so long his human body died? Had anyone died while he was asleep? If his human body was dead than does that mean his friends like Alisha and Rose were also…? Also seraphim lived a long time but they don’t live forever! What if Mikleo was also…
Sorey felt himself start to hyperventilate, he smelled wet dirt around him (smell) and he had a full body shiver, his whole body rejecting the idea.
He remembers Mayvin and he remembers Heldalf and he remembers his resolve. Sorey’s gut wrenches but he doesn’t regret his choices. What he feels is more akin to one of the temper tantrums he had brought up earlier, a childish desire ripe with selfishness. Sorey knows that if there’s nothing, no one, familiar when he’s able to get up he’ll just have to accept it and move on. But his heart hurts. He doesn’t want Alisha to be dead, he doesn’t want Rose to be dead, he doesn’t want any of the seraph he knew in his life to be dead, and the sheer thought of Mikleo…
Sorey’s mind screams as he tries to get up, to find Mikleo as fast as he can. Seraphim don’t just die of old age either! What if something happened to him while Sorey was asleep? He’s all too familiar with having seraph die on him at this point. Sorey did leave a lot of unfinished business and Mikleo did have the habit to push himself. And since gramps is not around anymore who’s there to stop him? Sorey as much as he loves them is scared his other companions might end up making him push himself harder instead of looking out for him.
Sorey never considered before he went to sleep what might happen to Mikleo afterwards. As much as he was a smart guy and someone Sorey trusted dearly he can’t help but worry, did he manage to grieve for gramps properly? God knows that Sorey is going to need some time to grieve when he manages to get up and find Mikleo, Mikleo who should definitely absolutely be fine. Oh, but Mikleo’s always been clumsy with his hotheadedness! How many times has Sorey had to save him from a trap he accidentally triggered in a ruin? If Sorey’s not there who is?
If everyone he knew is dead at the very least Sorey wants Mikleo to be alive.
Sorey struggles as he tries to move again, frustration building up inside of him at this feeling of uselessness. It should be over already anyway, all of his senses have returned, so why not-
The light impossibly grows brighter, stronger, until Sorey is sure he’s been blinded. Something hot burns around him and inside him, and he hears Maotelus speak.
It’s not in any language that he can understand, words lost to a time before the ancient tongue.
But Sorey feels it more than anything, a deep sense of understanding, like the words are reverberating inside him, coming from him.
“No, don’t go!” Sorey’s voice cracks as he shoots a hand forward, “This place needs you!”
A soft and warm reply enters Sorey’s being.
“Me? But I’m—” the light rumbles and Maotelus speaks his final words.
Sorey’s eyes widen. He had known he was becoming a seraph but this… this was a bit much.
The warmth surrounds him and the intense light informs him of his new duty and Sorey knows that he can’t refuse, realizing this had been his fate all along.
He takes a deep breath, steadying himself.“If that is what you wish…” Sorey resigns and the light seems to explode around him, he can feel it growing, like he’s gained an entirely new sense. Sorey is helpless as the light burns inside of him, and intense strength combining with his own existence feeling like an attack more than anything. The light around him expands and it’s incredibly fast and in an instant Sorey feels his vessel for the first time as the light flashes bright across all of Glenwood.
Sorey breathes.
He’s standing in the middle of the ruins where he had rested. They’re obviously older than the last time he saw them, whole structures he had seen during that final battle collapsed and plant life taking over the place.
Sorey was awake.
Sorey was alive.
Sorey was Maotelus.
A faint memory of a heated discussion he had had once with Mikleo float to the surface of his mind, debates of what element Maotelus possessed, Mikleo had wanted to believe that it was water and Sorey after he had learned that the entire continent was the seraphs vessel that he must surely be earth.
Oh how wrong both of them were.
Light dances across Sorey’s fingertips and he breathes, two new senses were going to take a while to get used of, the light powers remind him of how it felt to be armatized and use his seraph friends powers. The vessel sense however… that was something completely new. He could feel all of Glenwood, he could feel how purified the land was, and the people that lived there. He could feel all of this influencing him, flowing through him and a vibrating feeling outside of him. He wonders if he can ask Mikleo how to turn it off or at least how to tune it out…
Sorey snaps out of his stupor. Mikleo!
And in that moment Sorey is never so grateful to be reborn as Maotelus, he feels his being scan the continent for Mikleo and the speed of light pinpointing Mikleo’s exact coordinates easily. It’s dizzying but exhilarating at the same time, Sorey’s brain desperately trying to keep up with abilities unfathomable to him just moments prior.
But now he had to see Mikleo. And so Sorey went.
It was amazing what having such a huge vessel meant, or what just having a vessel meant in the first place. It all felt sort of like an extension of his body. Lailah and the rest could go inside of Sorey because he was their vessel and that meant Sorey could do the same thing with the land, almost everything around him, and that also meant that Sorey could appear at any part of the continent he wished to when he popped out again, just like Lailah could pop out at any direction around Sorey, Like how Mikleo would often come out his back during a battle.
And so as soon as Sorey had pinpointed Mikleo’s whereabouts he had also been able to arrive.
And thank Maotelus for that! Mikleo had managed to trigger a trap as the ground gave up underneath him! Sorey rushed forward and was able to grab his friends hand at the very last second. Luckily Mikleo’s hand had already been extended out, perhaps to cast an arte or some such.
Sorey felt something electric shoot through him as his finger met Mikleo’s hand, what felt like a chemical reaction, light meeting water. And moreover Sorey felt Mikleo’s hand for the first time in what felt like eternity. He wished that he hadn’t had his glove on in that moment so he could feel all of his friends hand but that was distracted by the rest of Mikleo.
His jaw seemed firmer, his cheeks less soft, face ripened past the adolescence Sorey had once known. His hair flowed way longer than it did before, tied up in ways that Sorey couldn’t even begin to explain, different from the short hair he was used to. And finally on the piercing purple eyes widening up at him.
That at least, had stayed the same.
Recognition flashes through Mikleo’s face as his eyes start from the hand that grabbed him (that glove, those fingers) and moved up his arm to the rest of Sorey. The man squinted as the bright light skewed his vision but within only a second or two he was able to make out his savior (that coat, that face, those eyes).
They stared at each other dumbstruck.
And it was only a few seconds before Sorey could feel the ground wanting to break underneath him and his whole body understanding that maybe it wasn’t a trap so much as an architectural failing and the two of them plummeted down to whatever depth was below.
Mikleo was pretty positive he was dreaming. It had to be a dream, one second he’s exploring a ruin and the next Sorey of all things is saving him and then the next they’re both falling! This sequence of events and lack on continuity really feels exactly like a dream would. And yet despite his doubt Mikleo’s summons his staff and they’re both floating down to the pit below slowly in a bubble.
They land and Mikleo is staring at Sorey. It’s definitely Sorey that he’s seeing right now but Mikleo could pull Sorey’s likeness easily out of his imagination so that didn’t answer anything. Also there were too many unexpected changes for Mikleo. For one Sorey’s hair color was the most obvious deviation. Mikleo had never imagined Sorey with anything but his signature brown hair and green eyes (even though he knew that Sorey got whitish hair whenever he armatized). Another thing was the hair’s length. The hair seemed to go on for forever; Mikleo couldn’t really see any discernable end to it. And finally the glowing, as much as Mikleo hated to admit Sorey always seemed to glow bright like the sun to him, this however was a more literal sense. Sorey was staring at him with wide eyes with impossibly long white hair and glowing.
The bubble bursts.
There’s a moment of silence before any of them can make a move and then, “Mikleo!!” Sorey practically screams as he dives into hug him and as much as Mikleo has a vivid imagination he can’t come up with something this real and vibrant and so Sorey in his arms even if he tried (oh he had tried).
This was real.
Sorey was awake.
“Mikleo! I’m so happy to see you! Mikleo! Your hair got so long! Mikleo! That bubble thing just now was so cool! Mikleo!!” Sorey literally bounced up and down as he hugged onto Mikleo tight.
“Idiot, stop calling my—” horrifyingly Mikleo’s voice cracks as Sorey shouts his name excitedly, “Stop tha—” a lump has formed in his throat.
“Mikleo! I’m back! Mikleo! Mikleo! You’re here!” Sorey rejoices beaming with pure unadulterated joy at seeing Mikleo again after all these years and Mikleo feels something fragile snap inside of him.
It’s been too long and Mikleo had long since gotten himself acquainted with the cold lack of Sorey. And he had been fine. It’s not like he needed Sorey to live these past seven hundred years. It’s just been… cold is all. A part of Mikleo had wanted to get rid of the cold, had wanted to forget about this bright boy, but another part of him had found the cold immeasurably precious, and as time went on it was some of the last pieces of evidence that Sorey had ever been there in the first place.
Sorey laughs brightly, warm and nostalgic and oh it’s too much. Sorey squeezes him tight in his arms, still toned and looking just the same they did on that last day and oh it’s too much, arms cocooning him in a sense of home that Mikleo had long since lost. And Sorey says his name so brilliantly and oh it’d been too long since anyone had said his name much less this wonderful boy in front of him. It’s too much, all way too much for him.
“Stop, Sorey-” and before Mikleo can finish he startles, the taste of his name on his tongue is too overbearing and his eyes start to blur and oh it’s been too long since he’s said Sorey’s name…
Like a scratched record Mikleo sobs out Sorey’s name brokenly.
Sorey stops jumping and pulls back a little and Mikleo is crying and hitting his chest in his arms. “Sorey you idiot. Sorey…” he hits Sorey’s chest and his old Shepard coat, “You’re late.”
Sorey’s eyes widen as Mikleo cries. He slides his arms underneath Mikleo’s and leans down to hug him tight. He’s crying into his shoulder now and Sorey is rubbing his back gently, like he did when they were little and Mikleo was having one of his temper tantrums, all those times back in Elysia and all those times all over Glenwood when Mikleo would need a moment and Sorey was ready with a hug.
“I’m home Mikleo…”
“You’re seriously saying you can teleport.” Mikleo deadpans, doubt laced into every word.
“I can! It’s really amazing; as soon as I thought I wanted to find you I went here immediately!” Sorey beams, grin widening
Mikleo sniffs, his nose still red, “But you can’t do it now.” Mikleo quirks his eyebrows up at Sorey he shifts uncomfortably from the look.
“Well I guess it’s not something I can do all the time? I’m not really entirely sure how I did it to be honest. At the time all of Maotelus’s power was flowing through me and it felt like I could do anything and I just…. It was incredible!” Sorey bounces Mikleo in his lap like an excited puppy.
Even though Mikleo had calmed down they had yet to leave the pit they’d fallen into. Mikleo is ignoring the dirt that’s all over and staining his robes as he sits with his whole body entangled with Sorey. He thinks he should feel embarrassed but he can’t help but indulge in feeling along with seeing and smelling and hearing Sorey. He feels like this is first drink of water in years and he can’t help but be greedy.
“Sounds like an excuse to me.” He bickers back, not because he doesn’t actually believe Sorey, just for the sake of bickering with him. He smirks as he sees Sorey start to pout, enjoying being able to mess with him and loving every second of Sorey’s gullible and innocent nature still being intact.
He was still the same, despite the physical changes Sorey was still the same. Mikleo felt like he needed to poke and prod at him until he had verified that every last part of this man was one hundred percent certified Sorey.
“Hey Mikleo…” Mikleo tilts his head at the sudden change in tone and topic.
“Hm, what is it?”
Sorey is looking down instead of at him and Mikleo’s feels a flair of selfishness, he wants Sorey to be looking at him right now. Sorey hesitates, “How… how long have I been asleep?”
Oh.
Mikleo feels sober all of a sudden, and much older than he did a second ago, all 738 years seemingly catching up on him in that instant.
“A long time.” Mikleo smiles gently at Sorey his hand resting on his shoulder.
Sorey huffs a short laugh, “Well I figured that. It’s just…” he trails off as he looks up out of their pit and towards the sky visible through the failing architecture of the ruin.
“Just what?”
Sorey looks to his side and Mikleo feels something in his chest tighten because it looks like Sorey might cry and Mikleo has never been able to deal with Sorey crying well, especially since it happened so rarely.
“When I woke up…” Sorey squeezes onto Mikleo’s hand as he looks down at it, “when I woke up I started thinking about how much time might have passed since… you know” he shrugs in a gesture that means… well everything that happened.
“And?” Mikleo asks softly.
Sorey rests his forehead on Mikleo’s shoulder, “I was scared that I had slept too long, that I was late and that when I was able to get up that…” Sorey’s voice cracks and Mikleo squeezes his hand back in fear, “that you wouldn’t be here anymore.” It’s barely a whisper but Mikleo hears it.
“You idiot” he laughs gingerly, “I told you I would wait.”
Sorey shakes his head, “No, no, no not like that… I knew you would wait.” Sorey’s eyes meet Mikleo and Mikleo feels and inexplicable urge to do something at that moment but he isn’t able to put his finger on it so instead he gives a shy smile. “No… that I took too long and that you might have been… dead.” Sorey chokes out and Mikleo is desperately reaching to stop the first tear of many from reaching his chin.
“Oh.” Is the only thing Mikleo can let out as he’s busy catching every tear that falls from Sorey’s too green eyes. And oh how in love is he with this boy.
Sorey sniffles and goes to wipe his face himself (Mikleo kind of misses wiping the tears himself but he accepts it) and he laughs softly, “Sorry that’s kind of dumb of me isn’t it?” and oh how Mikleo’s chest aches and Mikleo didn’t really expect to realize he’s in love with Sorey right now and he definitely thought he would be freaking out about it more than he was but all that’s taking over him is this intense need to hold the other boy (man, they’ve both grown so much by now, but also boy, this boy, the boy that’s always been) and so he does.
He whispers promises in Sorey’s ears, that he’s written books to show him, that he’ll show Sorey all the things that he missed, that he has so much to tell him, that they’ll go exploring together again, that they’ll follow their dream together once again, that it’s okay, that he’s never leaving his side.
Sorey laughs into the hug enjoying the warmth and the feeling of home wash over him.
Before he can think Mikleo leaves a soft kiss on the crown of Sorey’s forehead and before he can regret it another one. Sorey laughs warmly again and Mikleo can’t bring himself to regret it.
“Welcome home, Sorey.”