driftfleet | (no subject)

Who: Sorey, Zaveid, Dezel, Mikleo
Broadcast: Closed to those listed above
Action: Huntress
When: post Lailah's departure

Action. Huntress

[Sorey is just finishing up assembling their second engine when he feels it.

The abrupt lack of something, deep inside him, resonating like the strike of a gong. He smacks a hand against a bulkhead to keep from lurching forward and smacking his face into the wall, reaching frantically out for cords attaching his soul to his seraphim. Dezel, Zaveid, Mikleo-

Lailah.

She's still there, it's still there, but weak and distant. Like Edna's. The warmth of her fire has vanished, barely a flicker of what it was when she was here. Does that mean she's been sent home? Gods, Sorey hopes it does, prays that's what it means and not something...not something horrible.

To be sure he jumps to his feet and rushes out to check the ship for her. Maybe just- maybe something just happened, an augment glitch, maybe she just traveled too far from the ship for him to feel her (but he's pulled Dezel's wind across the ships before, it shouldn't have changed anything). He grabs his comm and hurriedly locks a broadcast; he has to check on the others, make sure they're okay, to see if they're still here.]

Broadcast. CLOSED

Guys?! Are you still here, is everybody okay?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's absolutely not just a thought and Sorey frowns, but after everything he knows Mikleo wouldn't keep something from him unless he absolutely had to. So he lets it go, albeit reluctantly, to ponder another time.]

Technically, I guess. [Sorey draws up a knee to rest his elbow on, sighing. Lailah had essentially told him there was nothing to forgive, which had frustrated him to no end but there wasn't much he could do about that.] Why?

I thought as much. [Mikleo scrutinizes him for a moment, just a series of heartbeats, really, and then-] Do you think that you'll be able to forgive yourself?

[There's a point to this, honest, and he knows it might be cryptic but he's watching Sorey intently, searching for an answer.]

Edited (goddamn u get a thesaurus) 2017-03-09 07:08 (UTC)

[Sorey meets Mikleo's eyes, manages to hold the stare for a few seconds before he has to look away.

I don't know crosses his mind, but it's not how he truly feels. He curls up, lowering his forehead to rest on his knee as he wraps his arms around his leg.

He can't look Mikleo on the face and tell him 'I don't know.' He can't sit here with the ache of Lailah's muted flame in his soul and say 'I don't know.' He can't think of the way his voice still trembles violently around the first syllable of Filk Zadeya, can't remember the way Eithan's face crunched under his fist or the way Allen had screamed as he burned and say 'I don't know.'

He can't recall a little boy humming as he weaves flowers into a crown, the whisper of you'll be okay above his head, and lie.]

...no.

[Mikleo wishes he could be surprised by that answer. He wishes he could get outraged by it, argue Sorey's merits, how far he's come, how hard he's tried to make amends, how he deserves to be forgiven. How one mistake, no matter how terrible, doesn't have to be treated like a crime with no reconciliation.

That isn't the point of his asking it, though. He's not trying to change Sorey's mind for him. The question was itself a test, a determination of whether or not he's making the right decision here.

Sorey's answer tells him that he's correct: he's not ready. Not yet.

So instead of getting angry, Mikleo sighs through his nose and moves back to the wall beside Sorey again, tilting until his head rests comfortably on the Shepherd's shoulder.]

When you change your mind, then ask me again.

[It's not a matter of 'if', even if Sorey won't believe it. Mikleo will believe it in his stead. Any wrong can be forgivable so long as the regret is genuine. That's what the seraphim of the past, those who love humans now, must have felt.

It's how he feels, now.]

[When you change your mind, he says, like it's already a foregone conclusion. Sorey doesn't know how to explain to Mikleo that it's not a matter of when, or a matter of just letting things sit until he's more comfortable with the reality of what he'd done; to forgive himself for what happened is to go against his own beliefs. He can't forgive Heldalf for all the venomization crucibles he'd scattered across the continent. He can't forgive the Hyland nobility for what they consistently keep doing to Alisha. It's not simply a matter of swallowing down a pill too bitter to stand.]

...I trust you with what you choose to share with me, [Sorey tells him instead, because he does,] but you'll be waiting a very, very long time, Mikleo.

...That's fine.

[He says it as if that, too, was a foregone conclusion- as if he'd expected such an answer from Sorey. It makes sense; if he can't imagine ever forgiving himself, an attached condition isn't going to suddenly change his mind. It isn't going to change Mikleo's mind, either. Forgiving one's own crime is an important part of recovering. He strongly believes that. Forgetting the lesson you learn from it... that would be intolerable.]

It's lucky for you that I'll be around for a very, very long time.

[Mikleo's quiet confidence in that makes Sorey's eyes sting, because he's right. He's right. Approaching that fear of losing Mikleo too feels too tall an order after losing Lailah so Sorey veers away, allows himself to dwell in the gratitude that he still has Mikleo, still has Dezel, still has Zaveid.

He does turn to wrap Mikleo up in a hug, though. He can't let something like that go with nothing.]

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