(no subject)

[monolike]

[He sleeps.

The plan had been simple, though Sorey hadn't known if it would work; act as Maotelus's vessel, cut off all his senses, and exist as a living pulse of purification. If he slept he wouldn't change, if he slept within Maotelus's domain he (hopefully) wouldn't die. It would mean he would be lost to the ravages of time, left behind by everything he knows, but this way he could eliminate at least a little bit more of the suffering the world had already endured. Maybe it's fueled in part by ego. Maybe he just can't leave things alone for someone else to clean up. Either way, Sorey closes his eyes and prepares to rest.

Only...he doesn't.

He doesn't dream, he doesn't experience some other world or existence; what he feels instead is a spread. His eyes aren't his and he can't choose what to focus on, and sometimes he hears things and sometimes he doesn't. For decades at a time all he hears is the slow growth of earth around the crater, vegetation creeping in and animals settling within it, rain trickling down to form a lake that empties over time during the more severe droughts. Sorey feels Glendwood change around him (and it becomes other names, Nothrand, Lilium, Morensa) and he realizes, an embarrassing few centuries later, that he's not awake but he's experiencing the world through Maotelus's blessing.

It's surprisingly soothing. Even when he watches civilizations build and crumble, Maotelus is there with him to talk him through the agony of observing war. It's hard, he says in his childlike voice, seated in Sorey's lap in the shared spaces of their souls, leaning his head back against his chest, it's hard just to watch, but sometimes people don't want to have peace. Freedom is the most important. You have to remember that.

Maotelus tells him stories about his old life, stories about what the world was like before Sorey was born. He laughs and affectionately calls Sorey naive, calls him young, even as he passes into his sixth century. We're unchanging to an extent, maybe, but I think you'll always be young no matter what.

Sorey told him he didn't want to hear that from someone whose voice hasn't even deepened and Maotelus pretended to sulk for almost four full years.

When Sorey becomes unable to feel the edges of the tainted world, he knows his time asleep as an observer is coming to an end. He's done all that he can; Maotelus knows he can't stay here forever, that no matter how powerful either of them are, Sorey can't do the impossible and purify the whole world just by remaining asleep. That everything is cyclical only when it's not, and that maybe Sorey can do more good in the world if he's awake for just a few decades more, to tell people what he saw, to pass on what he knows.

I love you, Sorey thinks even as sleep takes him further and further from Maotelus, I'll miss you.

Don't be silly, Maotelus chides. I'll always be right beside you.

- - -

Sorey wakes.

It takes some time, but he makes his way out of the crater. The air smells clean in a way he can just barely remember from Gramps's domain in Elysia and he breathes it in fully. His body is the same as it was when he went to sleep; clothes ripped and dirty, muscles sore. Seventeen and human, but he remembers everything, remembers centuries of watching, waiting, talking with Maotelus. He knows that at any given point one of his friends is watching over him, and knows that it's just a matter of time until he's found.

So he plucks a few apples from a tree, chooses a flat stone to sit down on, and waits. They'll find him before he finds them, now that he's just a regular human again, so he should make it easy and stop moving around.]

Comments

[monolike]

You wouldn't, [Sorey declares, but that's neither here nor there. He can't force anything out of Zaveid, especially if there's not actually anything there.

Instead he turns a little ways from the hill.] Could I get you to come with me? I'd like to talk to you about something.

[airily]

Yeah? [ But Zaveid is smiling all the same, watching Sorey for a long, drawn out moment before he softens and relents.

It's easier, he thinks, to just. Follow. ] Sure. Let's go.

[monolike]

[Sorey leads him further up the peak, toward Gramps's old house (Kyme's, now, though he's still down at the gates talking to their human neighbors). Once there Sorey starts climbing the rocks along the back, up to where the elysalark nests used to be.] C'mon, me and Mikleo used to hide up here when Gramps was on the warpath.

[airily]

[ Zaveid raises his eyebrows, but doesn't make a comment, not for a little while. He clambers up after Sorey, leaning back and trying to make himself comfortable. ] I guess you were up here a lot, then, huh? [ He nudges Sorey gently, grinning. ]

[monolike]

Hey! ...yeah, [Sorey admits, grinning and nudging Zaveid right back. He draws a leg up and takes a deep breath, looking down over the village. It's hardly changed at all...even his house is the same as ever, right there further down the slope.] ...Maotelus...talked about you quite a bit.

[airily]

See! I know you. [ He's grinning, but they're soon relaxed and comfortable again. Things might not look as though they've changed, but Zaveid knows otherwise. He knows the time it took to get here, how long the world needed to grow and adapt, and he wonders if Sorey can see it, too. The mention of Maotelus, though, makes his breathing tighten. ] Oh. Yeah? He's gotta learn it's rude to gossip.

[monolike]

In his defense he talked about all his friends, but I'll admit I paid the most attention to what he said about you.

[airily]

Is that because I'm the only one you can use to fact check? [ Aw, well. He did have some good times with Laphicet... ] What did he say?

[monolike]

[no you ass, it's because he liked hearing about you] He talked about how kind you are. How you were good with kids, and how you liked fighting but hated killing.

[airily]

[ He doesn't know that!! Jeez... ]

Oh. [ Zaveid frowns, looking away, forward and out at the landscape. ] Guess things changed a lot, didn't they.

[monolike]

Things change, [Sorey agrees easily. He reaches for Zaveid's hand, covering it with his own.] People, places, circumstances. I don't think it's as bad as I used to.

[airily]

That's just because you understand the reasons for it. [ Zaveid is old, so old, but he's not a killer at heart. Sorey must know what changed him, what made him steel himself and distance himself from the world - it was easier to not make friends than it was to make them and run the risk of having to put them down. ] You've grown up.

[monolike]

[Shrugs. A thousand years will do that to a guy.] Maybe a little. I feel like I understand a lot less than I thought I did before, though.

[airily]

That's because the world's not as small as it used to be. It was just you and the Lord of Calamity, and that was all you had to think about until the end came. Now you can think about everything in the entire universe. [ Zaveid's lips twitch up into a grin. ] Makes you feel older, and smaller.

[monolike]

Is that how you feel? [Sorey's got a feeling it is, but Zaveid so rarely shares his honest perspective on things that he'd like to hear it in his words.]

[airily]

Sometimes. [ Zaveid just shakes his head. ] I guess I'm really getting old now.

[monolike]

You're practically a fixture of this world itself, [Sorey jokes, though there's some honesty in his voice too. He couldn't imagine this world without Zaveid in it, now.] Like one of the four great cardinal winds.

[airily]

Aww, come on, I'm not that old... [ He scowls. ] They'd never let me be one of those. I'm too bad~

[monolike]

I don't think that's so. [Leans back on his hands to stare up at the sky.] If there's anybody who's left an impact on this world over all these centuries, it's got to be you. You've been here for all of it.

[airily]

I guess. [ Zaveid just shakes his head absently. ] I dunno. I guess I don't feel all that important.

[monolike]

Probably a good thing. [Sorey wraps his arms around his knees and peers over at Zaveid.] But Maotelus has seen the ripples of your actions over the years. And he admires you still, a great deal. That has to count for something.

[airily]

Jeez. [ Zaveid scratches his neck, sheepish. He'd never thought he'd have much influence on the world at all - he was just there for his own selfish reasons most ot the time... ] That kid...

[monolike]

... [Smiles and looks away, out over the village.] Gramps did always say wind seraphim were oddballs.

[airily]

Hey! [ He nudges Sorey gently. ] You hang out with the oddball.

[monolike]

I admire the oddball just as much as Maotelus does, [Sorey says idly, watching the villagers.] ...and I think maybe I picked up some of that oddness too, because I don't think we should stay here much longer.