driftfleet | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

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

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.]

I wasn't the only one who would jump in feet-first. You were just as guilty at that, you were just better at not getting caught. [Well, that's not entirely true either. Sorey knows he's responsible for at least 75% of the trouble they got into.] ...hey, Mikleo?

[Mikleo makes a quiet, disagreeable noise, though it's mostly noncommittal. Sorey's not wrong, but he'll be damned if he says as much.]

Hm? What is it?

I'm so glad we love each other. [Pulls Mikleo's hand into his lap to play with his fingers.]

[A-ah. Crap, now his cheeks are as red as his hair. He doesn't resist the pull, though, giving Sorey's hand a light squeeze.]

What's that for, all of a sudden...?

It's not all of a sudden. [Rubs his thumb over each of Mikleo's nails.] Every time something happens, back home or here, in the end we still have each other.

[Mikleo exhales a soft sigh, leaning in to bump his head against Sorey's.]

We're lucky, in that way. I mean, I don't want to jinx it... so many have lost people they care about, and yet we're still here.

[They arrived together, even. If they end up going back suddenly one day - before they can find a way to freedom with everyone else - he hopes they go together, too. It would be too lonely otherwise.]

Don't worry. [Sorey nudges Mikleo back with his temple, peering down at him.] We're connected. Even if we didn't have this pact, I know we'd find each other again somehow.

...Yeah.

[Mikleo's voice is quiet in his reply. It's not that he doubts it (it's the truth that they've lived for their entire lives, and he sees no reason for the pattern to not continue from here), but because he can't help but think of home. If - no, when, they have to eventually - they return to their world, Sorey will go back to sleep. Mikleo will go back to Rose and the others. He'll know where to find Sorey but be unable to reach him for years. Hundreds, maybe thousands. There's no way of knowing.

It's still scary, thinking about those countless days he's going to spend alone, and he doesn't like it.

...Ugh, stop. He turns his head just enough to press his face to Sorey's neck, smelling smoke and feathers; an unusual indulgence that he can't help feeling right now. It's stupid. This is stupid. Sorey's right here, there's no reason to dwell on all of that now.]

[It's not hard to tell where Mikleo's mind went; it's been happening more and more frequently for Sorey as well, as friends vanish, return home or return...wherever they go after death. Lailah, Dezel, Eizen, Edna. If Sorey is being completely honest, he's waiting for the day he'll lose Alisha, or Zaveid.

Or Mikleo.

This could be all Sorey has. When he goes back home he'll be asleep again, for who knows how long. Possibly forever. The others, they'll be without him but they've been without him for thousands of years. And Alisha and Rose, Sorey knows they'll miss him and he might never see them again, but they have their own lives outside of his. They'll be alright.

Mikleo-

Sorey pushes it down with a smile, tucking his chin over Mikleo's hair, soft as ever despite the change in hue.] Don't worry, [he says again, voice full of confidence he wears like armor.] It'll all be okay.

Edited 2018-11-04 05:48 (UTC)

[He wishes that was a confidence he could share, feigned or otherwise. He hates how much Sorey is losing back home, by sleeping - time, the world they know as it is, his friends, possibly more of his family, since none of them know what the future might bring - but a part of him envies that, at the same time. At least he gets to sleep. At least he can wake up and have it all be finished. The rest of them have to live through it, day by day, year by year. They have to make sure that the world endures, grows stronger, is safe, so there's something left for Sorey to live in when he comes back. If? When. When.

Sometimes he thinks about how it's only been two months, only the first two months. How hard it had been.

Sometimes he thinks about how much easier it would be to just curl up and sleep for hundreds of years, too. Leave the world in someone else's hands while Sorey's not really in it. They'd understand, probably. Sorey... Sorey might.

He doesn't say any of that. Instead, he says,]

I know.

[And he tries to believe it, he does. But there's an "eventually" hanging off the end of the words, and that could be a really damned long time.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only