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Being raised in the church isn't so bad.

Empyrean worship isn't as prevalent as before, even in the capital of Loegress, but the priests and attendants are all friendly and more importantly, it's safe. That's what they tell Sorey over and over, it's safe within the city, and he supposes it must be true. Sometimes he'll hear whispered stories when he's cleaning the pews, on his knees in the shadows as Brother Mathley and Brother Ferengard murmur, another village, did you hear, what a pity.

And though his heart longs for the outside world, as far back as he can remember, he's only seen the city walls. And the priests don't believe him when he tells them about the spirits; about the nice old kitty who tells him stories from when the mountains were still being born, about that man who could make the wind do as he wished. They were good spirits, Sorey could tell, but almost nobody could see them.

...nobody but Artorius.

He had only visited the capital once, with two other people. He was younger than the brothers but much older than Sorey, and he looked every inch the explorer Sorey wished he could be. Sorey had hidden behind the altar with the cat spirit as they spoke with High Priest Gideon, as he told them something about violence and nonsense before turning them away. Artorius (Sorey would learn his name much later) had seen him, looked at him and then, very deliberately, looked at the cat as well. Then he'd smiled and raised his finger to his lips before he and the others left.

"Don't associate with those types," Father Gideon had said to him, but Sorey knew, one day, he would join them.

The Scarlet Night happened, and now everyone could see monsters. And then it happened again, and everyone could see spirits. Artorius returned, Father Gideon welcomed him with open arms, and the moment Sorey turned seventeen he joined the Abbey's ranks. He'd practiced bowmanship and swordsmanship before at the church as a way to keep fit, but now his skills would be used to protect people, to kill daemons.

He would be given a malak, today, to use to those ends. And though it makes him feel a little deceitful, as Sorey pulls on and straightens his uniform for the ceremony, all he can think about is finally, finally leaving the city walls.

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The silence on Vahvuus's part is as much a courtesy as it is... well, sulking, though he doesn't know to call it that. He's been given something pleasant and exciting, an ounce of freedom, and then had it snatched away again. Even if Sorey has good intentions, it still stings.

He doesn't answer right away, pausing for thought - and to consider, briefly, not answering at all - until finally there's a murmured mental response of, "There's a lookout. Someone might see."

Because he does like it, and he does want to watch the water, but he dreads the thought of losing it again. Is this why malakhim are so mindless? These feelings, this distraction- they've made everything so much more complicated. Maybe one day Sorey won't even want to bother.

"It's okay." Even if the lookout sees and mentions something to another Exorcist, Sorey can probably say something like...he thought he saw a daemon. Maybe. If he can manage to lie.

More importantly, hes got the feeling that he's done something wrong, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't want to risk this to try and make it better.

Vahvuus lets it sit another moment or two before finally relenting, manifesting outside of Sorey's body with his back to the exorcist, instead facing the sea. His hands reach out to curl around the rail, leaning closer, his eyes roving from one thing to another: the way the waves curl over each other, the way the clouds roll gently above them, the way the light of the moon wavers elegantly across the surface of the water. He inhales the prickly ocean air, tasting salt, relishing in that dizzying feeling of his element all around him, loving it, fearing it. He's never experienced anything so wondrous and overwhelming before. Words don't describe it; there are so many things he could say.

"It is beautiful," is what he says at last, quietly. It's insufficient, but he can't bring himself to speak more.

Sorey turns onto his side in the hammock, the rope creaking between the posts. He pulls his blanket up over his shoulders to protect himself from the biting cold that doesn't seem to bother Vahvuus in the least, watching the way ocean winds toss his hair about like a child with a handful of festival streamers. "...what's it like? Looking at so much of something that makes you what you are?"

Vahvuus offers up naught but a quiet, thoughtful hum at first, his focus on the water, the waves parting around the ship and closing back in again behind it. Water is flexible yet steady at the same time, constantly moving, flowing, weaving a path through the world without care. He wishes he could be like that, but he knows his role- like ice he is frozen, fixed, pulled along the Abbey's rigid current. Chipped away, piece by piece.

He wonders, idly, if the tether between their souls would drag him back if he let himself fall in, or if he might just... float away. The waves crest teasingly in his direction, as if tempting him towards them.

His hands clench around the rail, knuckles going white, and he closes his eyes. "It's... daunting," he finally murmurs. "Like I could get lost here and not even realize it. Like I don't know where I end and the ocean begins."

Something falls into the quiet between them, a feeling of otherness, a wide chasm that Sorey desperately wishes he knew how to cross. "...are you scared?"

A good question, and one for which he's not sure he has a truthful answer. Fear isn't something a malak is free to feel, or at least not for him, not until recently. Feelings were still distractions, it could make him hesitate in battle, or attempt to disobey orders... he shouldn't even consider such a concept.

And yet, here he is. Is it fear that holds him in place, preventing him from falling? A fear of the unknown, of the consequences that might follow, of freedom, or of loneliness?

Or is it...

"...I don't know." Quietly, uncertainly. His chest aches again. "I'm empty- I have nothing, no memories, no dreams, no ambitions. If I fear this place, it's because I fear losing myself before I can become anything."

Maybe what's scary is just... thinking, hoping that he might have some semblance of self-worth. That Sorey's words of how his life holds value be true.

That, more than anything, convinces Sorey that Vahvuus really doesn't want to die.

That he doesn't want to be a tool, that he doesn't want to lay down his life for the convenience of his exorcist, for the Abbey to which he holds no loyalty. The idea of being so empty, so bereft of personality and still to be so terrified of losing what little he has...

"...I'm...I'm sorry," Sorey confesses, pushing himself out of the hammock to walk quietly over to Vahvuus' side. "I said something in the port that hurt you. Could you tell me what it was?"

Vahvuus winces, a certain tension flaring over shoulders and back, one that had only been hinted at before. He knows he should answer honestly, but the fear is creeping back in, fueling his reluctance. Honesty just led to disappointment before- the rise and fall of hope, a feeling he's too unaccustomed to for it to be a reliable sensation.

Just brush it off, his instincts whisper. And of course another, darker voice hisses obey, obey like always and he can't figure out if the urge to answer in truth or because Sorey asked for it. He wrestles with it, resents that feeling of uncertainty.

"I know you don't know all the rules," is his reply, facing out towards the ocean rather than the exorcist at his side, "But I wish that you did. I can't be anything until I know what I am allowed to become."

The questions haunt him, even when he tries to dodge clear: who is he? Who was he, if anyone? Is he meant to be serf and slave to the Abbey's orders, or a person with thoughts and desires like Sorey keeps telling him?

How long until it all comes crashing down around them? Until Sorey inevitably has to make a choice? Because he's already getting the impression that Sorey will choose duty above all else. A kind heart doesn't change the importance of one's mission.

It's difficult; sometimes the way Vahvuus says things is so vague, so peculiarly old-soul while seemingly so young...Sorey doesn't always know what to make of it. Doesn't often know what to make of it.

The Abbey has rules, and while Sorey likes to think he knows most of them, it seems like somehow Vahvuus knows even more. The way he'll steer away from certain topics, the way he'll reach for freedom only to lock himself down at the prospect of it...he'd been excited at the port, but when Sorey mentioned their mission he'd closed himself off for days. Halfway to Port Cadnix, and this is the first time they've spoken to each other at length.

"Allowed to become...?" Sorey's brow furrowed and he grips the railing. So Vahvuus feels restrained- is it because of their mission? Going out to see the world, to save people from the daemons? "Are you trying to say-"

WHAM

The ship rocks suddenly and violently to the side; the helmsman cries out and all of a sudden the deck is swarming with crew as they struggle to see what happened, if the ship ran aground some unexpected shallows-

But that sick feeling begins to seep up from the water and Sorey knows, quite suddenly, that he and Vahvuus are about to see their first daemon at sea. "-everyone who doesn't need to be up here, please get below deck!"

Now that he's paying attention, he can feel that lurching, subtle sickness that always comes hand in hand with the approach of daemons. Without Sorey's pure connection he knows it would be so much worse, but still- how had he missed it? He'd been so distracted by the sea, by the conversation, by his own confusion...

There's a certain level of relief that he feels, shamefully, for this. It's better than talking about his unnecessary problems. This is why he exists, why their partnership was started- so his power could be utilized to fight daemons, and to save the humans around them. That's all. That's what Sorey had been trying to tell him back at port.

Steeling himself, he dissolves his body and vanishes into Sorey's, allowing his stronger sensitivity to daemon influence guide where he moves.

"To your left- it's crawling up the side. Feels like a big one."

"I see it," Sorey mutters as a tentacle slithers up over the railing, unsheathing his sword and twirling it a couple times, trying to chase away his nerves. Technically, this isn't the first daemon he's ever faced, but this is the first one he's ever fought alone-

Except he's not alone. Vahvuus' power thrums through him, ebbing and flowing like river streams, collecting in the corners of his soul like frost. Neither of them are alone.

A large, octopus-type daemon pulls itself up onto the deck with a heaving splat. It doesn't look like it could've been what caused the ship to shudder, but when a tentacle curled around the railing crushes it to splinters Sorey has to reassess. Looks can be deceiving, with daemons. Even small ones can be deadly.

"Can you use ice artes on it?" Sorey asks Mikleo, circling the creature to put himself between it and the crew of the ship scrambling to tie down the sails. "Maybe if we can immobilize it quickly, I can get to the head and kill it before anyone gets hurt."

Vahvuus orbs back out of him now that they're closer, clutching the staff he'd been assigned by the Abbey with both hands. With a curt nod he lifts it and begins summoning ice around the creature, drawing it from the air, from the sea, from within its blubbery form. In the middle of the ocean there's no shortage of his element to draw from, if he can only channel it properly...

...and just as the ice melds the monster's tentacles to the deck it roars, a guttural noise as thick as bubbling stew, and the tentacle snap upright, shattering the ice with little effort. It scatters across the deck in thick chunks, already melting away.

Vahvuus takes a step back, startled at how quickly it had broken free. "It's too strong... we'll have to slow it down before something like that will work."

If it's strong against water artes, this'll be tough. No other exorcist is here to help them, either. Can they really do this?

When Vahvuus wavers Sorey steps forward, puts himself neatly between the daemon and his partner, brandishing his sword. Just slow it down? Hacking off a couple of its tentacles should help with that.

"Okay," Sorey mutters, half to Vahvuus and half to himself, heart pounding as he tries to recall his training, with little luck. It had been drill after drill after drill; then sparring, between his fellow trainees. Nothing against a- a monster like this.

But the ship's crew is shouting behind him...and Vahvuus, with no sense of self, with no reason to remain loyal to the Abbey besides that someone told him to be. "I know you don't know all the rules, but I wish you did," he'd said. There's something Sorey is missing, something that's troubling Vahvuus so terribly that he feels empty and trapped.

Sorey- he cannot allow them to die before he figures out what that is. They're partners. "Okay," he breathes again. Slow it down. "I'll cripple it, you support me however you can!" There's nothing to do but do it, Sorey tells himself firmly, and charges into the fray with a shout, swinging at a flailing tentacle before it can latch onto the mast.

Vahvuus nods, a faint glaze passing across his eyes, unseen by Sorey as he's already dashed by, as the words register as an order, an echo of obey, obey swirling about at the back of his mind. It hardly matters; he doesn't wrestle with the demand this time, not like he'd been fighting recently. Even if it wasn't an order - because it's Sorey, because it wasn't, despite his mind and soul and body reacting as if it were - he'd join the fight. No matter how disappointed the last few days has made him feel, they're still partners.

He moves to the opposite side of the beast, dodging around the thrashing tentacles, and stays carefully out of range as he lifts his staff to cast another arte. Instead of crawling ice he summons a series of shards, big as swords and just as sharp, and flings them towards the daemon. It roars and writhes, several of the limbs sliced and oozing black tendrils, not exactly blood but similar enough to be rewarding. It isn't so big that it's invincible, so that's... reassuring, mostly.

More confident now, Vahvuus takes a few steps closer, chanting under his breath to fire off another series of artes. If they can survive long enough to knock it loose, enough weighted ice could make it sink, hopefully before the boat does.

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