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Who: Mikleo (& Sorey!) and you
Broadcast: Yes
Action: SS Huntress & Iskaulit
When: now! Bam!

( video; morning )

[The communicator glitches itself on with an intrusive beep, displaying the occupied captain's bed of the Huntress, which at this hour is just a pile of blankets and a tousled head of brown hair; there's a bump that indicates another body, but none is visible on the camera. The noise causes a bit of stir, followed by a muffled sneeze and a groan. The sneeze carries with it, oddly, a spark.

A moment later, a glimmer of a small flame licks at the fabric around the shoulder of the brown-haired occupant.

Silence.

And suddenly the blankets jerk upright, and Mikleo's voice comes through--]

Sorey!! Wake up, you're on fire!

Nnnno ‘s just warm...

Wh- seriously!? That's your... ugh, hang on, I'll-

[Mikleo gestures invisibly, summoning water to douse the flames, but it isn't water that comes out. And now the bed is really on fire--]

….AAAAHH!!! What, what!?

AAAH, WHAT?! [Sorey jerks awake and that’s when the camera gets smacked around, tumbling onto the floor for a view of him screaming at the fire and trying to beat it -and something else?- with a pillow.] Fire! Mikleo, fire-!

I know!! I know!!

[CLICK- dead air.]

( action; huntress & iskaulit )

[If you happen to come across Mikleo for the next several days, he's stalking angrily and purposefully around, probably grumbling about the Atroma and their delightful meddling. Instead of the usual blue tinting the tips and curves of his hair, it's a soft auburn, the tips sliding into a gradiant of reds and pinks. He's on the hunt for distractions, and oh, is he ever cranky about his new look.

He's also leaving little spark trails behind himself, still not in control of his new element, so... maybe tell him, so he doesn't set anything important on fire?]

(( mikleo is augment-glitched into a fire seraph! laugh at his pain. both sorey & mikleo may respond to the first part! ))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's not-

[Whatever Mikleo is about to say is cut off as his night braid slips over his shoulder and enters his peripheral, and it startles him enough to jerk backwards because it does not look like his hair. It's- it's brown! And red! That's not how-

-oh lords-]

I'm-- fire!?

[Not the most coherent of sentences, but the words splutter and fall apart in his own head even as they enter it. He can't be- he can't be fire, he can't be a fire seraph, how can anyone have changed something so critically integral to who and what he is like this? Even the Atroma...!

Abruptly he sits down on the bed, clutching his hair and staring downwards as if he can will this whole problem to go away through shock alone. This cannot be happening.]

Mikleo- [Whoa hey buddy-! Sorey sits with him, reaching up to take his hands before he does something nuts like start pulling on it. IT'S STILL BEAUTIFUL...also don't hurt yourself.] Hey, hey, calm down. It's probably just a glitch, right? Like when you were a little kid.

[He's not pulling, but the sight of his hair like that is still jarring enough that it takes a few tugs before Sorey's hands draw him back. Just seeing the shades of it is messing with his head, reminding him of how his body's been inverted, how it feels wrong. He's itchy, half-nauseous. His body's hot- it's not supposed to be hot-]

That's- that's not... I was still me when that happened. I don't feel like me anymore...

[He's water, he's water, he's supposed to feel the pulse of his element through his whole body, in the air, in the ship, in the people around him-

-fire crackles in his hands, tiny sparks of energy, and he clenches his fists to keep it contained.]

[Sorey keeps Mikleo's hands in his, gripping his wrists when he curls his fingers closed against the sparks. Mikleo's clear panic weighs in his stomach, lines the bottom of it and makes him feel sick. As a human there's no way for him to understand something like this, and yet-

gaping hole where his heart should be-

-they've both been changed before. Mikleo's been changed before. He recovered from the memories, slowly but surely; something like this won't be the end of him.]

Hey, [Sorey murmurs again, setting Mikleo's hands in his lap before reaching up to hold his face,] I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're going through this, but I'm here for you. Okay? We'll weather this together, like we've withstood everything else. I promise, you'll be okay.

Edited 2018-09-24 04:13 (UTC)

[It takes a couple of seconds, but Mikleo blinks slowly around his own panic, focusing on Sorey's face. He's right, of course; they've been through some awful things, far worse than this. It feels horrendous, alien and new, but it's not as bad as the sinking, burning claws of malevolence. It's not as bad as dying, or witnessing Sorey's fall. It's not as bad as living day by day alone while Sorey sleeps.

So... okay. Okay. He's a fire seraph now. These things last what, a week? Two? He can endure this. He can survive.

Closing his eyes, he leans in until his forehead rests against Sorey's, breathing in, breathing out. He's warmer than usual, that's all. It doesn't have to be the end of the world.]

...I hope you know that I'm going to be miserable until this is over.

Yup. [Brings his hands up to smooth down Mikleo's hair, so accustomed to helping him care for it at this point that he has no problem drawing it behind his shoulders, his back, and start combing it into obedience so he can start tying a messy braid without even looking, his forehead still to Mikleo's. Best to keep it out of sight for now.] That's okay. You be as miserable as you need.

[Uuuuuuuuuuuugh.

He's just gonna sit like this for a while, letting Sorey pamper his hair.]

Sorry for setting the bed on fire.

I didn't really help with that. [It's a shared burden.

Sorey finishes the braid, tucking it back over Mikleo's shoulder and smoothing it down. He'll have to make a better one later, but it'll hold for a little while at least.] ...they really seem to like messing with you, huh Mikleo?

Apparently.

[His tone is still sour, but he's somewhat mollified by the hairbrushing, reaching up to curve his fingers around the braid. The room still smells of smoke, but it's less aggressive now.]

We weren't entertaining them enough without creating a fire hazard. Too many books being read, I suppose.

[Which makes him immediately jerk his head towards the bookshelf in panic because oh god- oh, okay. Okay, none of the books were set on fire. Thank goodness. That would be a real tragedy.]

Oh, they're okay, [Sorey pipes up just as Mikleo rears around to check, having guessed it at about the same time. Yeah Sorey would acquire third-degree burns before he let anything happen to their collection...which he's sure Mikleo would smack him over. ~~After healing his wounds.~~]

Maybe we should stay in my quarters? I can move the stuff out, there's not so much. And that way we won't have to worry about burning any of our things.

Your quarters are a disaster, don't even think about it. And where would we even put everything?

[He's a vain little shit who likes his personal space. No way.

...Also his bed is bigger.]

You are so fussy. We'd just move the stuff in here, it'd just be until this wears off.

I can learn to control it! Leave my room alone.

[He's not fussy! ...Much!]

It just means I can't use my artes, right? I can manage that.

Is it really different? [Sorey sits down on the edge of the bed, propping his chin up in his hand.] From that time you and Dezel swapped elements.

[Mikleo fidgets, brows furrowing.]

It's... different in a way that's hard to describe. I'd never used wind before- it's not adjacent to water, so I can't blend it into my artes the way I can with earth and fire. It was- alien, and jarring, yes, but it was new in a way that fire isn't. For me this feels as familiar as it is wrong.

[His gaze lowers.]

Dezel was around, too. He helped walk me through it. Maybe that's why it's different.

Maybe because you had learned that windstepping thing Dezel and Zaveid can do too. It wasn't an arte, but it was kind of similar, right? [Pats the bed next to him. Come sit down and he will pamper you.]

[....

Okay, okay, okay. Mikleo shuffles over and sits down with Sorey, fingers toying at a coil of hair near his face. It's still weird to see this colour- it's all wrong. Too much like- well, like... ugh.]

Yeah, like Edna's rock-punch. Less elaborate than an arte, but still functional in a way that we needed. Everyone else had something like that, which is why I started asking Dezel about it in the first place.

[Smooths his hair back and away from his face, petting down his braid to his back.] But then you came up with your own anyway. Overachiever.

I didn't hear any complaints from you at the time.

[He leans unconsciously into the touch, letting Sorey quietly soothe his ruffled feathers.]

And you never will. [Keeps that up, since Mikleo's slowly starting to slouch against him. Good, good.] I always thought it was cool that you would go off into the woods and then come back out with a new arte or technique or something. Kind of annoying that you never let me watch you practice, but still cool.

There's nothing interesting about watching me practice, anyway. It's just a whole lot of misfires until I figure out the actual technique.

[And also it's fun to watch Sorey's surprise when he shows off for the first time.]

Besides, you've done that too!

What! ...did I? I don't remember wandering off into the woods alone with strict instructions to you to not follow me, or else I would drown you...

You know what I mean!

[Their whole life together has been a series of trying to one-up each other in some way or another, after all. Just because Mikleo has more magical options on how to hassle Sorey doesn't mean Sorey wasn't creative with it.]

I do, I do. [Gives Mikleo's hair a gentle tug before getting back to rubbing his back.] Remember that time I tried climbing down those vines on the cliff near those pillars because I wanted to translate them before you? Gramps was so mad.

[Mikleo just goes ahead and slumps back against Sorey. He's feeling self-indulgent and he needs the comfort right now.]

You're lucky you didn't fall on your head. We were way too young to try and reach those ruins, back then.

[He sounds more amused than annoyed, though. They did that all the time- rebel against every rule, push every barrier. The only one they never pushed was leaving Elysia itself, until they actually did.]