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Apr. 30th, 2017 12:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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kickitover[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.]
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.]
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Date: 2017-08-29 12:47 am (UTC)[And that's how they set out together: one human, one seraph, with no plan more concrete than to just 'cross the ocean.' Kyme and the others are sad to see Sorey go so soon, but he suspects they expected him to leave with Zaveid. 'Even after a thousand years, you've barely changed,' Kyme tells him, smoothing his hair back before giving him a hug. 'Always ready for the next adventure.'
They give him food, supplies, journals and charcoal and Sorey has to leave a little at home or be too loaded down to even move. At the end of it all Kyme gently sets Gramps's pipe into Sorey's hands, which he hugs to his chest before tucking it carefully into the side of his pack.
And after that...he's off.
It takes a little getting used to; even after watching the world the entire time he'd been asleep, it's nothing like experiencing it in person. Elysia seems like it's been trapped in time, stone huts the same as ever with wood stoves and fireplaces, but as they approach Ladylake Sorey sees how the world has changed. The city has at least tripled in population, villages and housing, fisheries and craftsmen spilling onto the banks of the lake outside of the castle city walls. Lights flicker on as night falls as if lit by seraphic artes and Sorey grins up at them as they pass beneath the flickering amber circles they cast onto the ground.]
Do you think we'll be able to find a ship to take us, Zaveid? [His family had given him all the modern money they had, some weird sort of paper gald people use these days (which is so strange), but he has no idea the scale of what anything costs anymore.]
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Date: 2017-09-02 09:22 pm (UTC)Everything has changed, though, and Zaveid sticks close to Sorey, sometimes poking into his vessel and sometimes walking beside him, arms crossed behind his head as he hums. Everything is so much more, and watching Sorey learn it all is something incredible. He doesn't know what sort of world Sorey was expecting but he bets that this goes above all of his expectations. ]
Hm? Sure, I'll bet we'll get something.
[ It doesn't have to be a fancy ship, after all, and merchants are always happy for an extra bit of money. It's not as though they have to pay for Zaveid's passage, either, considering barely anyone can see him, especially if he ducks inside Sorey. ]
People are always after money, y'know. Just make sure they don't take advantage of you bein' alone.
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