(no subject)

[monolike]

[The first thing Sorey thinks as he falls is what Lailah said as they left Camlann; that without his domain, all of them would instantly be hellions. The ground collapses beneath his feet, the wind drake behind him snaps up his cloak in its jaws and he sees the terror on Mikleo's face just before Symonne's laughter shrieks out and he and the drake fall together.

If they're too far away from me-

He can still feel their connection. He can still feel them, even if they can't go to him, and Sorey prays that's enough.

Wind rushes past them and Sorey tries to wrench out of the drake's grip (It's gotta be a wind seraph, Zaveid had shouted as they were thrown into the thick of battle in the tight corridors of the fortress), twisting and turning, sword in his hand. They'd weakened the drake considerably as a team but he's not sure he's powerful enough on his own to purify it, not even with all the strength he's gathered. Not without the others.

Hopefully, because Rose is there, they'll be okay. Please, please, I can't lose anyone else-

They fall far but hit a collapsed spire at an angle; in the mess the drake releases Sorey (or maybe his cloak tears, he can't tell) and he tumbles, bumps against it and hits the ground hard enough to rattle his teeth in his head and jar his bones. He pushes himself up, ignoring the bruises and aches, the constant, thumping worry of his heart and puts his sword between he and the drake as it sways up to its feet.]

Don't worry, [he promises the poor thing, because thank god, thank god it's not a dragon yet. There's still hope.] I'm going to save you. Don't worry, it'll be over soon.

Comments

[sylphystia]

I'm fine.

[He doesn't laugh at Sorey's joke, but not for lack of trying. He's just... so tired. He's going to need a rest after this and not just in Sorey's happy little heart. He can tell, a little, that Sorey is trying to calm himself down. He's overwhelmed just like Dezel is.]

Zaveid made the pact?

[That must be who this is. He can feel the thread.]

... I guess I should've expected that, after he handed over that gun.

[He's not going into a screaming fit. Being replaced? That's... well, that's just life. He left them first.]

[monolike]

Then you definitely know him better than I did. I had no idea he'd try to join up with us. [Sorey hadn't been particularly welcoming either, something he's not ashamed of, but wish he'd done differently. Zaveid had been trying to help in his own awkward way. They just...hadn't been able to accept it.]

He approached us, actually. Just outside Pendrago. [So, yeah. The very definition of 'too soon,' but considering the world is at stake they didn't have the luxury of taking the time to properly mourn.] Rose said you'd told her that if we didn't keep going, you'd...what was it? Kick our asses? [oooh he said a bad word]

[sylphystia]

You didn't have anyone else. He's a pain in the ass, but he's not stupid. He saw you needed help.

[He stretches his awareness out a little. He's recovering fairly quickly thanks to Sorey's pure domain. There's a sort of bone-deep exhaustion that won't go away until they've properly rested, but it's nothing he can't handle. Not with Sorey at his side.

... God, it feels good to know that. To know he isn't alone. To know he's-- valued. He still can't quite believe it, and he probably won't believe it until he's back with the others.]

Don't swear.

[DEZEL YOU JUST--]

[monolike]

Hahaha, sorry. [He doesn't really like swearing either, but he thought that might rattle Dezel a little bit. The atmosphere's a little too heavy right now.

Sorey gazes around at the floating, crumbling platforms around them and makes a decision, sheathing his sword.] Are you strong enough to help me make the jump over to that platform over there? I think I can climb that wall back up to the main walkway if I'm careful.

[sylphystia]

[It's true. Dezel realizes that, probably, but it's still weird hearing bad words coming out of Sorey's mouth. He's way too pure. Mikleo is the ten percent meaner twin.]

I'm good for it. Let's go, Shepherd.

[He concentrates and gives Sorey a little boost. He'll feel his feet are lighter and swifter than usual, which only serves to help propel them across the gap.]

[monolike]

[Sorey's never said anything aloud, for fear of hurting anyone's feelings, but Zaveid and Dezel's wind is completely different. He'd almost lost himself once; he'd gotten so used to how Dezel controlled the wind with featherlight touches, razor precision, piercing and lilting that when Zaveid came along with this thousands of years of knowledge and his brute-force gusts that Sorey was almost bowled over. It had taken a lot of adjusting, and it made Sore almost sick with heartache, missing Dezel as fiercely as a prisoner misses fresh air.

Sorey lights on the platform as gently as if he'd been carried there and he almost cries. The breath he sucks in is shuddering and grateful, and his eyes sting though the tears down fall. He doesn't say anything but he knows Dezel must feel it, the way Sorey's heart beats with the sound of home, home, home like he was born to be Dezel's vessel.

The crumbling rock wall is less than ideal as a ladder but Sorey is slow and careful, testing his handholds as he pulls himself up.]

Dezel...I don't know- gh- I don't know if you want to come with us to fight Heldalf. If you don't- if you don't, that's fine. The plan we have is kind of an 'end of the line' thing. [Sorey sniffs.] I'm probably not going to be coming back from it for a while, at least.

[sylphystia]

[Sorey's having trouble with his emotions, and even a blind man can tell. It's in the way Sorey's breath hitches, in the way he furiously blinks as if to will the tears away, in the desperate, faintly-trembling fingers gripping at the wall. Dezel halfway considers orbing out just to help him up, but he decides against it. Sorey will need him if he starts to fall.]

Don't be stupid. [The words are somehow less sharp than they seem.] I'm not scared of what he can do to me. I never was. [In the end, what turned him was the fear of what Heldalf could do to Sorey and Rose, and everyone else.]

... You going somewhere?

[monolike]

Well, then plan is to bring down Heldalf, [oops, that handhold is crumbling, better side-leap to another one, catch him please] and then I'll be Maotelus' vessel to purify him. The others want me to- to use Siegfried against Heldalf, but I'd r-really rather not. If- oof- if it can be avoided.

[sylphystia]

[Dezel gives Sorey a foot up via a puff of air. He's not going to fall. Dezel won't let him, or anyone. The wind trial had proven that, hadn't it?

... Using Siegfried against Heldalf, that's... risky. Dezel makes a soft noise of disapproval. Being shot out of that gun hadn't been a pleasant experience, and in fact, any one of them could actually die if they're too badly injured.]

You... want to become Maotelus' vessel?

[Maotelus is already corrupted. He's gotta be a dragon half the size of the world by now, and Sorey thinks he can tame him?]

Sorey-- you'll be giving up your life. You realize that, right?

[monolike]

[Yeah...thus, Sorey's great reluctance to use it. If they can defeat Heldalf, subdue him without it, Sorey won't even touch the cursed thing. The idea of using his friends, his partners as ammunition for an attack- even if there's a chance they'll live through it, he doesn't want to take that risk.

But to deny them their wishes when he's likewise willing to turn himself into a vessel for Maotelus would be ignorant, heartless and cruel. None of them would stand for it.]

Ahahaha...yeah, I know. [Sorey smiles ruefully to himself, to both of them, hefting himself onto a platform halfway up and taking a moment to catch his breath. It's a long climb.] I wish there was another way, but...this is what has to be done. Just going through the world, purifying malevolence bit by bit isn't going to make any headway. It'll just be one step forward and two steps back; I'll be dead long before anything changes.

So. I figured, while the opportunity faces us, I might as well take advantage of it. I'll probably just be sleeping, so I probably won't die. [Maybe. Depends entirely on whether or not he ages during his sleep, he supposes.]

[sylphystia]

[Sorey is wrong.

He's right about purifying the malevolence. He's right about how short his lifespan is. But Dezel feels like he's wrong about something, and it's only after a minute that he realizes what that is.

Sorey is wrong about just how much his life is worth. Like he can just take Maotelus' burden by himself and come away from it just fine. Like-- like he almost doesn't matter. This is clearly a decision he's made, and a decision he's talked about with the others, but something about it--

-- it just pisses him off.

Dezel orbs right out and seizes Sorey by the front of his cloak, though there's hardly any malice in it. The frustration Dezel is feeling, displaying, it's all directed at the world around them.]

What the hell is WRONG with you? How can you talk about dying so casually?! Your life doesn't just belong to you anymore! You're telling me that you're not even going to live in the world you want to create? You're fine with leaving your human life behind and all the people you spilled blood for-- who spilled blood with you?

[He's reminded, faintly, of their meeting in Marlind. Sorey had been too naive, too pure for Dezel to comprehend. He's feeling much as he did that day, like he just can't fucking understand Sorey at all, like he's trying to touch something and it keeps morphing beneath his fingers.]

You dragged Rose into this, and now you're going to leave her with your mess. Is that it?

[monolike]

[The smile slips off of Sorey's face as Dezel shouts; he reaches up to gently rest a hand on Dezel's wrist, nothing more.

It's not fine. And Dezel likely knows that; Dezel, of all people, would understand that, and as he rails, as he snarls and even shakes Sorey a bit his expression twists into one of sympathetic pain, of sadness, but ultimately of resolve.]

I know, [he murmurs, heart aching for Dezel, but still firm. Because the thing about that is this:

If Sorey goes into this with even a speck of doubt, the malevolence Maotelus carries will swallow him whole. And Maotelus must be purified, or this world will continue to poison itself from the inside out.]

I'm sorry, Dezel, [Sorey whispers, squeezing his wrist.] If there was any other way- [Funny, he didn't think being on this side of the equation would be so hard. Is this how Dezel had felt when he'd begged Sorey to weaponize him?]

[sylphystia]

[Dezel doesn't let go of Sorey immediately. He's having a hard time processing the determination in Sorey's voice. He can't see his expression like other people, but the wind tells him all he needs to know. His anger falters in the face of Sorey's conviction and his apologies, though, and it leaves Dezel with his head lowered and his grip trembling.]

You always were... too soft.

[He covers his face with his hand and leans against the wall. He can't believe everyone else is fine with this-- but no, he can. Dezel isn't going to stand in Sorey's way; that was never his intention. Life is unfair. He knows this more than anyone.

He just wants to make sure Sorey knows how much his sacrifice really means.]

[monolike]

[Dezel's quaking fingers slip from Sorey's cloak and he lifts a hand to follow, stops, clenches it at his side and gives Dezel a moment of space, chewing his lip. It doesn't seem fair, to get Dezel back like this only to have to immediately say goodbye. It isn't fair, but fairness doesn't really factor in for people like them.]

Sorry, [he says again, heartfelt and painful, raw and open.] I just...want a world that doesn't poison you guys anymore. I can't stand it. [It hurts, seeing the sadness and terror and hatred of humans tear into seraphim. Most of them are jaded to it by now but for Sorey, raised by the kindest beings he's ever known, to have found his precious family with them, only to see how their kind suffers day in and day out? How their kind has fallen to perpetuate that suffering?

Human beings being driven to madness and despair under the weight of their own impurities, with people like Rose and Alisha resorting to extremes in order to try and bring peace back to their kind-

What else can he do?]

[sylphystia]

I don't want to hear it. You say you're sorry, but you're not going to change your mind. What good is that?

[Sorey doesn't have to explain his side of things anymore. Dezel knows, logically, that it's the only thing Sorey can do. He just doesn't understand how Sorey can. It's not right to throw his life away. It's not--

-- but that's how it is. Nothing in this twisted world is ever fair. It should be Dezel's life, not Sorey's.]

What really gets me is that you don't have to do everything alone, yet here you are, trying to justify exactly that. Did you learn anything?

[He lowers his hand but he doesn't meet Sorey's eyes. His gaze is somewhere distant. Maybe behind his hat.]

... I'm going to take Mikleo's place in the final battle. That way the two of you can do this together.

[monolike]

If you do that, who'll take care of Rose?

[The thing is, he's not even trying to guilt Dezel. If he ends up having to use Siegfried, if he ends up being the one to kill his friends for the sake of saving the world and then goes to sleep for who knows how long, Rose will be alone. She'll have the Sparrowfeathers of course, but she'll have none of the seraphim she'd made friends with, she won't have someone who understands what it's like to have resonance, able to see the seraphim around them.

Besides that, if Rose loses Dezel again right after they'd gotten him back, out of some kind of...one-up contest they're both having to see who can sacrifice himself first, she'll never forgive them. She'll drag Sorey back from sleep and Dezel back from death just to hit them both.]

Hey, you said it. She's going to have a mess to deal with after this. Can't I ask you to support her, instead? [Like how it was before.]

[sylphystia]

[Ugh, god, he didn't ask for this. He knows Sorey is giving him that look. And he's right, again. Dezel should be there for Rose if he's able. Almost dying might have saved him once, but turning into a drake and then being purified, only to ditch her again? It's too much.]

Damn it. [He lets out a huff.] We're going in circles... This is pointless.

[Sorey is asking him a huge favor. After Sorey let him die as he wanted, isn't that what Dezel owes him? Doesn't Dezel owe him the same courtesy?]

... If you're so determined to do this, then channel some of that into coming back when it's over.

[monolike]

You got it. [Sorey might get smacked for this, but he claps a hand to Dezel's arm and squeezes anyway, relieved. Rose being left alone was one of his greatest fears about going into this if he ends up having to use Siegfried and all the others are...lost. She would have had to run on her own. But if Dezel is with her, she'll be just fine.

Dezel will keep her safe.]

You'll be at the top of my list of people to find when I wake up. Promise.

[sylphystia]

[Dezel doesn't shove him off. He knows Sorey is touchy, and while Dezel is a little more reticent, he's by no means averse to it when it's someone he knows. He sighs softly as he surrenders the argument, and to show it, he reaches up and places a hand on Sorey's.]

We'll be waiting.

[monolike]

[Maybe it's selfish of him, but at the end, with Heldalf half-keeled and with his own breath scraping his throat raw, Sorey is glad to have someone to shove Rose against when he breaks the platform. He's glad to see two faces instead of one as he falls, he's so glad that at least one of them made it out.

And when it's all over and he sees his friends, sees Mikleo escape Heldalf's grasp and float gently back out of harm's way, he thinks, Thank goodness. It's only me. Thank goodness everyone else is all right. Any doubt he'd had left vanishes, and he approaches Maotelus, accepts him wholly, and sleeps.

He doesn't dream.

He doesn't experience the passage of seasons or years, doesn't even feel the world purifying itself, the malevolence slowly being uprooted from the continent as Maotelus sleeps inside of him. He doesn't feel the shrine go up around the altar upon which he rests, and he doesn't feel it crumble centuries later. The light never dies though the pilgrimages taper off until only a few Shepherds and their companions come to pay their respects. Ivy crawls up the walls of his own ruins as the years tick past like seconds and still, sightlessly, soundlessly, he sleeps.

Until, one day, he doesn't.

Sorey wakes as if from a good night's rest. He blinks sleepily up at the ceiling above, collapsed and thatched and collapsed again across the centuries. His body doesn't want to move at first so he works slowly on twitching his fingers, sniffing hard and sneezing. Did he collect dust? No, probably not. Maybe it's allergy season.]

H-hello? [Sorey croaks. After a moment of fumbling he manages to slide down off the altar, half-collapsed on the broken stone and weeds surrounding it. It's probably been forever. Years, more than years by the look of the ruins. He doesn't remember much of this; there aren't any hew marks on the altar so it was probably made, probably by Edna, along with the rest of these ruins.] Softie, [Sorey snorts, pushing himself up on trembling legs. Is he still human? Well, he's not currently dead, at any rate. He probably is.

We'll be waiting.

Time to go.]

[sylphystia]

[The months pass into years into decades into centuries, and the world becomes a little different. Rolance and Hyland's peace turns into a complete unification, which they've experienced before, as is written deep in the dark crevices of the history books. A Shepherd quells the resulting malevolence.

A great library is built in Ladylake. It burns down when a country from across the sea invades and sacks the city. A Shepherd calms the small calamity, and the invaders become immigrants. There are more and more Shepherds now, and it becomes a reasonable goal for children to aspire to. Some live unfortunately short lives but all of them succeed at their job thanks to Lailah's guidance.

Children are born in a village outside Elysia, and they learn to see seraphim as Sorey did.

Mikleo writes like his last day will be tomorrow. Some of his books seem more like memoirs to Sorey, about their journey or about the events that have transpired since his sleep. Some are drier, more historical texts. There is one book he writes under a pseudonym, and only one, but it becomes wildly popular and inspires everything from paintings to plays to music.

It's a book of poetry.

Edna and Zaveid spend time together, but they part ways when it becomes clear that Zaveid no longer wants any part of a sub lord's burden. He's fine just lending Mikleo the support he needs. Sometimes they even go through ruins together, but it's not the same.

And Dezel--

He loves Rose completely, entirely, and they share that bond even when she is a retired Shepherd on her deathbed. Her last breath leaves her and Dezel is the one to take it. He carries it with him. He carries it after the mourners have gone. He takes it to Brad's grave, to Alisha's, to Sorey's altar. Then, unfettered by mortal bonds, he travels the world for a while with her wind in his ear. He never pledges his loyalty to another Shepherd, and he all but disappears from history entirely.

But he isn't gone. Even Dezel has grown to love the world that Rose and Sorey protected. While looking over the newest band of the Sparrowfeathers as they ride down the road, he feels a shift in the wind. It feels warm and familiar, and he isn't sure why. As he turns his head toward the pillar of light at the end of the world, a man with red hair asks, teasingly, why Dezel is making such a strange face.

He goes to check the ruins by himself and leaves Zaveid in his place. A few days' travel is made blissfully short when one can windstep, though it still takes a great number of hours. If Sorey has woken up, he might not remember anything. He might need Dezel there, who has forgotten more than he's ever remembered. He has no way of contacting the others while he's on the run, something that rapidly-advancing technology still hasn't addressed.

That's fine. It might not be anything, anyway.

Maotelus' altar is still as creepy as it ever was, though it's awash with light that he can feel. He steps on a stone and it wobbles, then crumbles into a massive abyss; Dezel decides to windstep across the bridge ahead rather than testing it.]

Someone here?

[Dezel looks much the same as he always has, minus the hat. Zaveid still hasn't given that back, and really, Dezel has accepted it. But his sight hasn't returned and maybe it never will. He's long forgotten what it was like to know the color of his own eyes or the plumage of a bird.

He's feeling a little nervous for some reason, so he calls out with more volume:]

Hey, kids, this isn't the kind of place you want to play around in! It's the sacred territory of the seraphim!

[Ugh. Maybe he'll make a run up to that village and see if any of the kids are missing again. This happens every century or so, and it looks like it's Dezel's turn to fish whoever fell into the ruins out of them.]

[monolike]

[Wind flutters gently toward him and ruffles his cloak; Sorey notices with some interest that it's clean and mended, instead of torn and dirtied and bloody from battle. Maotelus? Maybe just for appearances. Probably doesn't look great if the one purifying Glenwood looks like he just went ten rounds with a dragon.

...he's losing focus.

A voice rings through the ruins and Sorey can tell, by the reverberation of it, that it's clear and loud though the words come filtered through as if underwater. His brain still hasn't quite woken up, just like his body. Sorey still lays half-collapsed against the altar and when he tries to pull himself up again, his legs won't hold his weight. He thinks he's just tired. Tired from sleeping for a very, very long time.]

I-in here! [he calls, just in case someone is looking for him. An adventurer, maybe. Who else would walk into a bunch of crumbling ruins? Had the others let them fall into this state because they knew he'd get a kick out of it? Or...has it been so long that...]

[sylphystia]

[Someone calls back, but even the wind can only bring snippets. It tells him there is someone inside and they are injured or weak, but there isn't much of a description beyond that. No details. Could be a kid, could be a seraph, could be anyone.

Dezel grumbles to himself. He's starting to feel a little like Lafarga must have when he tugged Dezel out of trouble the fifth time.

He crosses another bridge with swift, light feet. He passes through decrepit passages from millennia ago, and some more recent ones. Edna's work. She keeps putting off going back to the altar, and Dezel thinks it might have something to do with her doubts about Sorey's return.

Dezel has a promise from Sorey, though, and he knows that seraphim promises are binding. Even if Sorey becomes a seraph and forgets it all, he might still be bound by that oath. That's what he's holding onto. Dezel's never had the unshakable faith that Mikleo had, but the comfort of a promise is better than nothing.

He ascends the stairs to the beautiful altar room that Edna constructed to protect Sorey, and he notices how it's overgrown with nature. Maybe this was her intent all along. Sunlight slants in from above, feeding the beautiful and very old tree that has made this place its home. Petals from its tiny orange flowers settle upon Sorey's hair and shoulders like specks of gold, like familiar feathers. The effect is lost on Dezel but he's aware of the petals as they skitter away from his wind.

It takes him a moment or two to register that Sorey isn't in his usual place upon the altar.]

S-- Sorey, [he gasps before he's even aware of it, and he zips to the former Shepherd's side. This could be a sick joke-- it could be, but he won't be sure until the boy says something. Until Dezel hears... something. Anything. Any sign that this isn't some kind of terrible joke. He's filled with a brief flash of righteous anger. If someone touched Sorey, even just to push him off the altar, Dezel will know. He will find them, and he'll make sure they never sleep peacefully again.]

[monolike]

[Arms go around him and Sorey's senses catch up with him too late to place pale green hair, sharp teeth, dark clothes before he's being lifted back up onto the altar. Dezel? Dezel. It's him, it's Dezel, he promised to be waiting and now he's right here.

Sorey's fingers twitch against Dezel's sleeve before he grabs onto it with all the strength he can muster.]

This is-

[Sorey swallows against the rasp of his voice and looks up into the silvery shine of Dezel's unseeing eyes. He grins as wide and bright as possible when he feels the wind ruffle his hair and brush his cheek.]

-the coolest thing to wake up in.

[He has his own ruins.]

[sylphystia]

[Dezel feels a little thrill when Sorey's fingers clutch at his jacket. His heart leaps into his throat. For all the moving on he's had to do, he really hasn't moved on at all. He still carries a bit of Rose with him, and he still looks after her descendants. He still-- he still--

Sorey is smiling, he's smiling like he wasn't just dead for a thousand years, and all of Dezel's resolve crumbles. He sucks in a breath like a wince and falls to his knees right there, his arms slipping securely around Sorey in a real embrace, while he buries his face in the Shepherd's shoulder.

Of course he's happy about having his own ruins. Of course he is. Dezel is just happy to have him back. All of their human friends have become legends, and Sorey-- Sorey is a legend, too, but he came back. Ugh, god, he can't do this, he feels like he's going to cry. He hasn't cried in several centuries and he doesn't want to start now.]

You idiot, [he manages through a throat like a vice. He remembers Sorey pushing Rose into his arms and going to face Heldalf alone. That was all he had to go on for so many years.] You're such an idiot.

[His grip on Sorey's shirt tightens until his knuckles turn white beneath his gloves.]