Title: Memories Like a Mountain Rating:G Character/Pairing: Edna, Eizen, some OCs, Eizen & Edna Spoilers: Spoilers for both games, though mainly Zestiria. Words:7,711 Summary:“Earth malakhim,” Eizen had once said, “have memories as strong as mountains. Where the winds of time chip away at and rob humans and malakhim alike of their memories, we’re blessed with the ability to remember everything. No matter how much time has passed.”
AN: This is the full, uncut version of the fic I wrote for @zinestiria many months ago! I’ve been dying to share it, and now I finally can~!
The main inspiration for this fic really was comparing how it felt for me to “lose” my brother after he left home for college. I imagine Edna probably felt the same, so I wanted to explore it and try to convey those feelings. It also helps that Eizen’s a total chatterbox about Edna in Berseria. Most of the major memories here were taken straight from ones he either recounted or hinted to have happened. I placed them as chronologically as I could figure them from his vague indications. Some aren’t completely accurate to what Eizen says happened, but….such is the price of writing on a time limit with minimal planning lol.
Please enjoy! Thank you to everyone in the zine who helped me cut down to what it needed to be for the zine version and thank you to my friends who beta’d the full version in preparation for today. Thank you also to @mez-zo for creating beautiful page border art to go with the fic in the zine.
“Earth malakhim,” Eizen had once said, “have memories as strong as mountains. Where the winds of time chip away at and rob humans and malakhim alike of their memories, we’re blessed with the ability to remember everything. No matter how much time has passed.”
Blessed. Is that what it could really be called? True, the fact she could remember so much did come in handy. Like putting Meebo in his place, piquing Sorey’s interest, or filling in the gaps of Lailah’s own memory. She wouldn’t call those blessings, though. If anything, they were perks. A big difference. Outside of those perks, her memories only served as painful reminders of things she used to have—things she’ll never have again. What purpose did that serve except to capitalize on her loneliness?
Her limited understanding of the humans Eizen loved so much told her that most human memories start when they’re about four years old. For her, though, her memories start from the moment she opened her eyes after materializing from the earthpulse. Seraphim—or malakhim as they’d called themselves back then—aren’t normally born as babies, but she was a rare case—or so she’d been told. She hadn’t been a baby baby like Meebo had been, but she was small enough and close enough in age that she might as well have been one. She didn’t cry like a human baby, nor did she move much from where she formed, but her presence had been felt in the small seraphim village nearby. For a little while her vision had just been full of the blue sky above her, but then it was obscured by a face—Eizen’s face.
They blinked at each other, mutually curious about the unfamiliar sight. When he picked her up to look at her more closely, his hands had been bare and she can still remember the warmth that radiated from his palms. She’d felt the connection being drawn between them from the moment their eyes had met. As she reached out her stubby hand to childishly grab at his dumb nose the connection grew stronger and then it solidified. This smiling idiot was her brother, and though she was still new to the world at the time the realization of that bond made one thing clear to her: she wasn’t alone.
Many seraphim began learning to refine their artes very early on in life. For Edna, she started using artes subconsciously at an earlier age than most seraphim and it was only when a rock almost fell on her that Eizen began to properly teach her. Well, as best as he could, given their different fighting styles. She was a smart girl, though, so even with Eizen’s bumbling teaching methods she grasped how to control them quickly enough.
From there, it was just a matter of refinement. That happened over the course of several years, on and off. A new arte here, a different technique there, and though it was pointless to consider, she couldn’t help but compare herself to him in terms of their ability. He’d lived longer than her, so of course he knew more artes than her and could perform more powerful feats with his than she could. That didn’t stop her from trying to emulate him anyway, and every time the miscalculation of power came back to bite her. One time when trying to mimic one of the ice spells she saw him use, the arte came out too big and the backlash caused frostbite over both of her hands and forearms. Eizen’s mother hen tendencies got worse after that. Despite the lectures she’d get, his worried admonishment always came with the added assurance, “You’re fine as you are, don’t push or overwork yourself like that.”
Her first experience with a thunderstorm was a particularly strong memory. It was a warm Summer day in their tiny mountain village. At first there was just a light drizzle and Edna—age 7—stood under the awning of the simple house they lived in, watching the rain fall while staying dry. She hated the sensation of getting wet, but the sound of rain was nice. Calming. At least it was until the rain began to fall harder, chasing any remaining seraphim—except the weirdo water types—under shelter. As soon as she’d adjusted to the changed rhythm of the rain a bright flash of light and a loud BOOM that shook the ground beneath her feet had her shrieking and running into the house. Eizen, who’d been reading a book, barely had time to react before Edna crawled into his lap and clung tightly to him, hiding her face in his shoulder.
“Edna, what’s—” Eizen started, but was cut off when another clap of thunder resounded from outside.
It wasn’t as earth shaking as the first, but still powerful and loud and Edna’s shoulders tensed with the hitch of her breath.
“Ah,” he’d said, shifting only to mark his place and put the book down so he could gently pat Edna’s back in comfort, “we don’t normally get thunderstorms up at this altitude. This is the first one we’ve had in a while.”
“It’s loud,” she said, muffled slightly by his shoulder, “I don’t like it. Make it—eek!” Another thunderclap and she began to tremble, “Make it stop!”
Eizen chuckled before wrapping both arms around her, placing his other hand on the back of her head and petting her hair.
“That’s unfortunately not in my power to do, but it’ll go away on its own in a few minutes.”
Nonsense, she thought. Eizen was dumb, but he was bigger than her and stronger too.
“Yes you can, just punch it like you do everything else!”
Eizen laughed again, this time louder.
“I can’t punch the rain, Edna.”
“Not the rain, dumbo, the loud boomy thing!”
“The thunder,” he corrected her, “is just the sound of competing currents of electricity in the air. It can’t hurt you. Listen, the storm’s already passing.”
She did and he was right. The rain had gone back to its gentle drizzle and the latest clap of thunder was faint compared to the previous ones. This realization made her relax and lean back, though the ‘I told you so’ look on Eizen’s face made her harrumph and puff her cheeks out in annoyance.
“Whatever. You could’ve taken it.”
She left him with that as she ran to her room, Eizen’s boisterous laugh behind her.
Part of her had always known, somewhere in the back of her mind, that something was wrong with Eizen. A faint darkness always surrounded him, but he didn’t seem to mind it so neither did she. True, it did seem at the time like she got hurt or sick more often whenever Eizen was around, but those were nothing. Minor, annoying inconveniences if anything. Eizen, at the time, had also been making more and more trips down the mountain to the nearest human village. To get supplies, or so he’d always tell her. Every time he returned, the cloud was a little more visible.
Convinced the humans must be doing something to him, she tried to get him to stop going.
“Eizen, you should stop visiting those humans,” she’d said one evening.
She didn’t consider herself particularly close to any of the other seraphim in the village at the time. She didn’t need to be in order to find things out about the world she lived in. She’d overheard murmurs that most seraphim by then had adopted vagabond lifestyles—that seraphic villages like theirs were pretty much a relic of a dead era long before she was born. But the most important thing she’d overheard was whispers of judgement directed at Eizen, because while most of them did live in house-like structures Eizen was the only seraph in the village to fully adopt living like a human, even the unnecessary parts like eating. It worried her, for various reasons.
“Hm? Why?” He’d asked, crossing his arms over his chest like a petulant child.
She’d clicked her tongue. She knew this topic wouldn’t be easy, but Eizen’s stubbornness was another beast entirely.
“People are talking.”
“So?”
“They’re saying mean things about you!”
“And?”
“So you should stop hanging around earth-dwellers so much.”
“No.”
“Eizen!”
“What?!”
She narrowed her eyes into a glare, intending to be intimidating, but the effect wasn’t as potent as she wanted it to be. But she tried. Eizen was unaffected and just kept his arms crossed.
“Don’t you care about what the others think and say?” She finally asked after a few moments of a glaring contest between them.
“Not particularly. Never have. Do you?”
She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again without a word, frowning instead. Idly, her fingers clenched around the handle of her closed umbrella—a gift Eizen had brought from the village a few weeks ago—and twisted it where it lay against her shoulder. Thinking on his question, there wasn’t really any reason for her to care what other seraphim thought, was there? It irritated her, sure, but it wasn’t the real issue. The real issue, she realized, was humans. Humans with their poisonous clouds of darkness, latching carelessly to Eizen and infecting him, draining him slowly of his essence. The closer they got to him, the more distant he felt to her. She didn’t understand it. The umbrella’s weight on her shoulder grounded her where she was. It really was a nice umbrella…
“No,” she finally answered, then changed the topic slightly, “but I want to meet these humans.”
It took some convincing and a lot of arguing, but finally Eizen caved and the next morning they both walked down the mountain towards the human village. On the way Eizen began to ramble about the history of the village. Edna feigned disinterest but didn’t actively try and stop him. The village, it turned out, was a proper, bustling town in the foothills of their mountain, though when Eizen had been younger—before she was born—the town had been a small hamlet coinciding with their own seraphic village. Many people at the time had lost their resonance, but there remained a few who could at least see Eizen when he visited, though the numbers steadily became smaller as time went on. Edna wondered why, then, Eizen bothered coming so much if most people couldn’t see him.
It turned out that, of the few people who could see him, this included a family of merchants who ran the town’s tavern. When she and Eizen entered there were only a few patrons in the main sitting area who wasted no time in complaining about the magically opening door. They barked their complaints then returned quietly to their drinks and their own conversations. The barkeeper, though, had the light of recognition in his eyes as he looked up and saw them before subtly motioning them over to a secluded part of the tavern where talking to oneself didn’t seem suspicious at all. He, Edna learned, was the great-great-something grandson of the human Eizen first met and resonance ran strong in their bloodline. He greeted her with a smile, but all she did was nod in acknowledgement. Then he and Eizen talked and clapped each other on the shoulder before Eizen ordered drinks for them both—beer for himself and hot chocolate for her. She watched these happenings unfold with only a little boredom, clutching her umbrella tightly against her shoulder. So far her impression of humanity was that they were loud and rude. Nothing about them seemed interesting enough to take her brother away.
When the barkeeper returned with their drinks he also set a small plate down in front of Edna. She stared at the flaky, vaguely heart shaped pastry in confusion before directing the look at him instead. It was something called a palmier, apparently. At Eizen’s encouragement she took a tiny bite out of it, expecting it to taste terrible. Instead, the sweetest taste she’d ever tasted flooded her mouth and before she could stop herself, the pastry was gone. Okay, so maybe humans could do some things alright.
After that, whenever Eizen went down to the village he’d always bring back a small box of palmiers for her. She didn’t know why, but something about them was just…calming. They made a decent comfort food. Maybe humans had artes they used to make their sweets addictive. She didn’t know and frankly she didn’t care. They helped calm her nerves and that’s all that mattered. Eventually Eizen had gotten them so much that the barkeeper gave him the recipe.
Seraphim don’t have birthdays, but Eizen had made their birthdays traditions in their household—yet another human trait he’d adopted over the years. Hers was coming up soon, so one evening he shooed her out of the house with the errand of collecting firewood for them. She protested, because why do they need firewood when there are fire seraphim nearby, but she gave in and wandered around the outskirts of the village. When she returned hours later with a small bundle of twigs and sticks in her arms the smell of palmiers hit her as she approached, her pace picking up a little. Eizen, predictably, was in the kitchen and told her to put the wood she’d gathered in the fire under their oven. She did, but the moment the wood touched the small flame it grew in size with a roar and surged outward from the opening. It happened faster than she could react and the next thing she knew the side of most of her right leg had a nasty burn along it. Her screams had Eizen by her side in seconds, mother hen mode in full force. Despite her protests he took time to treat the burn. Consequently, the palmiers he’d been making for her came out more like charcoal than the proper pastry she knew. It was upsetting, but more upsetting was the pained expression on Eizen’s face as he helped her to bed, the burnt treats forgotten on the kitchen counter.
“Eizen,” she’d said, “it’s fine. I’m fine. I still want to eat them.”
But her assurance and insistence were only met with Eizen’s frown deepening, a shake of his head and a pat to the top of her own before he left to clean up. Her leg hurt, but watching his back as he left the room made her heart hurt even more, seized with an anxiousness that she couldn’t yet understand.
A few days after that incident, Eizen declared that from that day onward it would be safer for Edna to do the cooking for them. She didn’t understand the logic there, considering she was the one who got burnt, so wouldn’t it make more sense to keep her away from fires? But Eizen had made a decision and, like a mountain in a hurricane, he refused to yield, so Edna agreed to it. Despite the bad burn, fire didn’t bother her and if it made Eizen feel more at ease then she figured it was fine.
Despite the switch they’d made, Edna wasn’t any less prone to injury. Several times she’d stub her toe or fall. It wasn’t anything serious—not like the burn she received before—but ever since then Eizen had seemed to worry more and fret over even the tiniest injury, so she began to try and hide any new injuries from him. She didn’t want him to worry. When he worried, he would go to the village. And when he did that the cloud at his back only grew darker and bigger.
It didn’t really seem like that big of a deal until a Fall day when she was 8. She was outside, stoking the beginnings of a fire in their make-shift pit; because after the burn incident Eizen figured it’d be safer for her to work with an open fire instead of their oven. Dinner was going to be whatever Eizen and Joel—another seraph from their village—brought back from hunting in the nearby woods.
Things were going well, until the sky opened abruptly with rain, dousing her fire and ruining the wood she’d spent all morning gathering. It was unfortunate, but just as she’d turned to run for cover a painful stabbing sensation filled her chest and made breathing feel as if her lungs were full of rocks. A domain had appeared. A powerful, malevolent domain. The other seraphim that were out of their homes were similarly frozen in place, fear on their faces as this kind of domain meant only one thing.
Weakly, she turned her head in the direction of the woods, the trees appearing darker through the purple haze of the domain. It…It wasn’t possible, was it? He couldn’t have…
“Ei—”
But just as she began to speak a large shadow crashed through the trees and flew with impressive speed straight for her. She had no time to react, barely any time to scream, and the next thing she knew she was high in the air, trapped in the talons of a dragon.
The beast let out an angry roar as it flew higher above the clouds. For a moment she was afraid it was going to drop her from this height, but as it reached its apex it dove straight back to the ground, the dive punctuated by a shrill scream from her. Like when it left the woods it raced down the mountainside on the wind, heading straight for and into the human town. The next moments were fuzzy, the constant jerking around by the dragon causing her to go in and out of consciousness. She remembered screaming. From her and the multitude of humans being attacked by it. She remembered fire and blood, death and destruction.
Eizen, stop! She’d thought at one point, fearfully convinced of who this dragon was.
When she regained consciousness again the wind was once more in her hair as the dragon flew back up the mountain. Behind them, from what she could see, was nothing but smoke and ruined buildings.
He’d…He’d destroyed the town he loved…killed the humans he loved…and now he was going to kill their fellow seraphim too… No. No no no no no NO!
“EIZEN!!!”
But before the dragon could make it to their village something stopped it with powerful force and it shrieked in pain, loosening its grip on her. She pinched her eyes shut with a squeal, bracing for impact that never came, partly because someone caught her before she hit the ground and partly because she fainted again after barely registering that fact.
When her eyes opened once more it was to the sight of the dragon dissolving into light. Standing over it, with his back to her, was Eizen. As he turned to walk over to where she was resting against a rock her eyes sweltered with heat before overflowing with equally hot tears. From fear or relief, she didn’t know.
Eizen knelt to her eye level when he was close enough, his smile strained as he reached out to pet her head and brush a tear away with his thumb.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now,” he’d said.
Such reassurance should’ve relieved her, but it only served to make her cry more.
“Eizen,” she’d managed to say through her tears, weakly reaching out to clasp his sleeves tightly in her small fists, making sure he was real. “Eizen. Eizen.”
She had no idea what she was trying to say. All she could think to say right now was his name, whenever the flow of her tears allowed her to speak. Eizen hadn’t been the dragon. He wasn’t a dragon. He hadn’t become a dragon. He was here, he was still here. The fabric of his jacket was rough against her fingers. He was real. This was real.
Whatever she’d been trying to say, Eizen understood. Carefully, he scooped her up again into his arms and she wasted no time in burying her face against his shoulder, muffling the rest of her crying there as she clung to him. By the time they reached their village, her tears had mostly all been cried out. Now she was just tired. And sore. Ugh.
Rather than head straight for their house, though, Eizen paused as they crossed the threshold into the village.
“Eizen,” said someone with a deep voice, “who was that?”
She lifted her head from where it was perched to look over her shoulder. Almost all of the seraphim in the village were gathered in the center, most of them looking apprehensively at Eizen. The one who’d spoken was the elder, who stood in front of the rest. Though he was the oldest in the village, he didn’t actually look all that old. But his face was hardened with a stern expression that made Edna anxious.
“Joel,” Eizen answered simply.
Joel. The seraph who went hunting with Eizen. She hadn’t known him that well, but she knew he strongly disapproved of Eizen’s interest and exposure to humanity.
“We were hunting together when he started up an argument with me. I tried to defuse it, but he just got angrier. Then he turned into that,” Eizen continued.
“I see,” said the elder, his arms crossed and eyes closed, “This has been on our minds for some time now, but, with recent events being what they are…we think it’s best that you leave. The sooner the better.”
A low murmur of agreement rippled through the assembled crowd of seraphim. She’d feared this outcome, but hadn’t expected it to happen like this or this quickly. Though this was shocking to her, she strangely felt numb to it. Perhaps due to the overwhelming emotions from earlier.
Eizen scoffed, “What, am I dangerous now? I neutralized the dragon for you.”
“Be that as it may, it’s become clear now that your very presence puts all of us in danger,” the elder’s gaze shifted to her and she reflexively clung tighter to Eizen, “Especially to the little one. I think it’s best that she stays with us, but you need to—”
“NO!” The cry left her lips before she could think to stop it, her arms around Eizen’s neck in a vice grip as she furiously shook her head against his shoulder. The gentle pressure of Eizen’s hand on the back of her head made her stop flailing, but the thought of separation had her crying into his jacket once more.
“She refuses,” Eizen said.
She heard the elder sigh deeply through his nose and imagined he still had his arms crossed and eyes closed.
“Very well,” he said, “It appears you’ve already poisoned her anyway.”
The crowd dispersed after that, a few whispering to each other as they went to their own houses. They were expected to leave by morning. Although there hadn’t been more than light structural damage in their village, the human town wasn’t as fortunate. It was completely destroyed and not a single human survived. Consequently, the area had been soaked in malevolence. It didn’t pose them any immediate threat, but there was a worry that given time it would eventually drift upwards into the village. Many of the seraphim expressed apprehension at that, some murmuring suggestions that they just abandon the place, adopt vagabond lifestyles like the rest of the world’s seraphim had already done.
She didn’t care about that now, though. She was being kicked out of the only home she’d ever known, and it was likely that in a few years it wouldn’t be there anymore anyway. But that was fine, she told herself. She’d only really been connected to the village because Eizen was there anyway. So, as long as she was where Eizen was, she’d never really be homeless. Eizen was her home. As she lay on her bed after packing up what meager possessions she could think to take with her she turned her gaze to the window. The rain that had started from the dragon’s appearance was no longer falling, but the sky remained dark with clouds.
When they left the next morning, no one saw them off. She didn’t know how long they wandered for, only that it had been many days and nights of walking or getting carried when she was too tired to walk anymore. Finally, they stopped as they approached the peak of another mountain. There was no one around—human or seraphim—and the air was clean. Eizen deemed the place good enough to settle. It wasn’t a bad place, she thought.
Since there wasn’t any seraphic village here nor were any of the human villages in reasonable walking distance, there wasn’t much of a point in building a house here too. They didn’t need to either, since there was a small enclosure of rock carved into the mountain that would give them suitable shelter. Even so, it wasn’t as comfortable as the bed she’d always had. She didn’t complain, though. She wouldn’t! Past comforts meant nothing anymore. All that mattered was that she still had Eizen and now…now there was no way anything else bad could happen. Nothing else could push him away. No humans would take him from her now.
Or so she’d believed until one day, after they’d been settled into their new home for a while, Eizen made a sudden announcement.
“Edna, I’ve decided to go on a journey.”
It was late and they were eating dinner—a light vegetable soup. The sudden declaration made her pause in her eating, though she resumed shortly after the initial shock had passed.
“Okay, when are we leaving?” Because of course he’d take her with him, right? A glance up to his face revealed a frown and his eyes hidden behind his stupid hair. …Right? “Eizen?”
“I meant alone, Edna. You’ll be staying here.”
Her bowl clattered to the ground as she jumped to her feet, soup forgotten.
“No I’m not!”
“Yes, you are. I have to go alone.”
“No you don’t! I can go with you!”
“It’s too dangerous! You’ll be safer here.”
“Is this because of what they said before? I thought you didn’t care about that!”
“I don’t, but they were right. I’ve let this curse hurt you for too long already.”
“You’re not the one hurting me! Take me with you, I can help!”
“No, I’ve made up my mind.”
“But—”
“Edna! You’re staying and that’s final!”
She ground her teeth and clenched her hands into fists as she glared at him. This didn’t make sense! Where had she gone wrong?! Why wasn’t he letting her go with him?! He’d set his own bowl aside when he started talking, so now his arms were crossed over his chest and his mouth was drawn in a frown. His typical stance that told her no further arguing would make him budge. She felt tears forming at the corner of her eyes, but before they could fall she turned quickly on her heel and ran outside, further up the mountain. He didn’t chase after her.
Later when she returned to their makeshift home, Eizen was already asleep and the mess she’d made earlier had been cleaned up. She stayed where she was at the entrance for a moment before grabbing her small cot and dragging it over to be next to Eizen’s, flopping down on it so her back was pressed to his. A simple comfort to tell her he was still there. Seraphim didn’t need to sleep anyway. She fully intended to stay awake until Eizen got up. If he was so intent on leaving her, then she just wouldn’t let him! Or so she stubbornly thought, not realizing when her eyes grew heavy and she fell asleep anyway.
In the morning, the first thing she noticed was the lack of warmth at her back. The realization had her sitting up quickly, heart seized in panic as she frantically looked around. He was gone. Did he really just leave without so much as a word to her? Was she too harsh last night? These panicked thoughts raced through her mind as she got up to investigate, but just as she was about to move Eizen appeared at the entrance. He had a dead bird in hand. Adrenaline left her in a relieved sigh as she slumped back down onto her cot.
As she made breakfast for them he told her that he wasn’t going to leave immediately, but it would be within the next day or two. He wouldn’t be gone forever, only until he found a cure for his curse. And most importantly, he’d keep in touch through letters. That was all fine, she supposed, but she still felt bitter that he was leaving her and not even giving her the option of going with him.
For the rest of the day she secluded herself on top of their rocky home, scribbling away with paper and pen she’d borrowed from their belongings. When she finally came back down the sun was low in the sky and Eizen was reading one of his books by firelight. Without any preamble she marched over and held what she’d spent all day working on in front of his face. A small self-portrait of her that barely took up a corner of the page.
“So you won’t forget what I look like,” she’d said.
Eizen blinked curiously at the paper before setting his book down and taking it in hand instead. He smiled at the childish scribble, a genuinely happy and amused smile that Edna hadn’t seen him do in a while. Then he took one of the pieces of paper and pens and scribbled for a few moments before presenting her with an equally bad self-portrait of himself.
“Seems only fair you have one too,” he’d said, “but they’ll get ruined if they stay exposed like this.”
Then something seemed to dawn on him and he got up to rummage through one of their packs. She watched him curiously and when he finally found what he was looking for he came back to her side. In his hands were two lockets—one on a long chain and the other on a short band of ribbon.
“If we do it like this,” he explained while gently tearing around the edges of both of their drawings, making them small enough that they could fit inside the lockets, “then we’ll always be close to each other, no matter how far away I am.”
In the long chained locket, he put her self-portrait then put it around his neck. He did the same with his in the smaller locket and then reached out to put it around her neck. She brought her hand up to gently touch the smooth stone of the locket and the simple action had tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. Eizen’s hand was heavy on top of her head as he ruffled her hair gently.
“Don’t cry, Edna. I told you this morning, didn’t I? I won’t be gone forever. I’ll be back, I promise.”
They went to bed after that. When she next woke up, the cot beside her was cold and a note had been placed under her arm. It had instructions for how to send a letter, an apology, and a repeat of the promise spoken last night. Edna read it, crumpled it up and tossed it aside, then rolled over onto Eizen’s abandoned cot and went back to sleep.
Seraphim, as should be expected, don’t have a writing system. Most didn’t write at all or even know how to write using the human’s script. It changed so much, most of them never bothered with it. However, years before they were kicked out of the village, Eizen had thought it a good idea to teach her how to write. She never used it or had a need to back then, but he made her practice anyway. Now, in hindsight, perhaps his plan to leave her had been in the works longer than she’d suspected.
It was only a few moon cycles after Eizen left that she received a letter—her first letter. At first she didn’t know what to do about it, until the Turtlez who delivered it suggested writing a reply before wandering off to give her time to write one. But that was the problem. All Eizen’s letter consisted of was an apology for abruptly leaving, some descriptions of what he’d seen so far, and a few crude drawings. She simultaneously had a lot she could say—that she wanted to say—and not much to say at all.
By the time evening had fallen and the Turtlez had come back to check on her, she’d filled at least 5 sheets of crumpled up paper with crossed out starts and sentences. This was annoying, she decided. Why did she need to only keep in touch with him this way? There wouldn’t be a need for any of this if he’d just taken her with him to begin with! Stupid curse! Stupid Eizen!!
In the end, there was only one thing she could think to say in response to his apology—to his letter in general. She wrote it quickly, folded and sealed it the way his instructions had said, and sent it off with the Turtlez. In the middle of the paper, in handwriting that was out of practice and childishly big, there was only a single sentence:
I don’t care if it’s dangerous, I want to be with you!
- Hephsin Yulind
Despite various attempts she made in her letters since then, Eizen didn’t come home and always replied with more apologies and promises that he’d be back. Eventually, she gave up trying to persuade him. For a while after their first letter exchange she’d write short letters in response, but lately she had stopped writing them. It just became too bothersome. After all, unlike wherever Eizen was now, nothing changed about her life on the mountain. She maintained a sleep schedule out of habit, practiced her artes at the summit, sometimes ate, and sometimes read. Day in, day out. Nothing special to report usually. Besides, even with her lack of response Eizen continued to send letters and gifts.
It was because of one of those letters that she was sitting on a rock at the top of the path that led down the mountain. Her umbrella was open and resting on her shoulder as she twirled it subconsciously, her eyes scanning the path below. The letter she had gotten a few days before was Eizen telling her that he was coming home. For how long wasn’t said. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t help but hope that it was forever.
She had been 10 years old when Eizen left. Though she had tried at first, she quickly lost track of how long it had been. At least 200 years, she thought. There was a point where she had noticed herself visibly aging and panicked a little about it. So she stopped aging quite as noticeably. It wouldn’t be good if she looked nothing like what Eizen remembered when he came home, she reasoned. If it at least looked like no time had passed at all, then…then maybe they could pretend that no time had actually passed. It may’ve been wishful thinking, but wish for it she did.
She was brought out of her thoughts when she noticed movement at the bottom of the path. Her eyes widened as she jumped up from her perch, the familiar bright yellow of Eizen’s hair unmistakable against the dull brown of the mountain path. The umbrella was no longer spinning, but the handle was clenched tightly in her hands as she watched him slowly come into focus.
When he was close enough that she could see his face more clearly he smiled and waved and suddenly the weight of 200 years of loneliness crashed down upon her heart.
“Eizen!” She called, her voice cracking as tears formed in her eyes.
200 years was a long time, she decided. 200 years too many. And now, finally, it was over. Finally, they could be a family again. Finally, time could move on as it was meant to. Even the dark cloud—which had only grown bigger and darker since he left—wasn’t going to take this away from her.
She closed her umbrella before taking an unthinking step forward, intending to run the rest of the way down to meet him since he was being a slowpoke. That had been the intent, but…
As soon as she took more than two steps forward an inhuman screech resounded above her. Looking up revealed a hoard of six Garuda hellions descending right for her. She hadn’t been prepared, so instead of using an arte to fend them off she helplessly waved her umbrella around at them; trying to knock them away and step away from them. It seemed to work a little, however she hadn’t been watching where her feet were going and didn’t hear Eizen’s warning until it was too late. Her foot met open air instead of solid ground. She screeched as her body became weightless, falling over the open side of the cliff. It didn’t last long though, as she immediately heard the sound of an arte going off, the Garuda hellion’s painful death cries and Eizen’s arms catching her out of mid-air and returning to the top of the path.
Her eyes had pinched shut when she began falling, but now they opened. She smiled, but when she found Eizen’s face it immediately fell. Eizen was frowning, his teeth gritted and eyes hidden by his bangs. It reminded her of how he looked when he’d saved her from the dragon all those years ago, and before that when she was bedridden with a burn. This realization took any relief she had been feeling and replaced it with newfound fear. He wasn’t—
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here. I thought it would work this time, but…”
He was.
She tried to get his attention, pull him from those annoying thoughts he was muttering under his breath. That train of thought he was on only led to one destination and she wouldn’t let it get there. She’d waited long enough already! But despite her attempts, even when she desperately reached out to grab at his coat sleeves, he continued to mutter about failed methods and danger.
“Eizen!”
But even calling his name and reassuring him she was okay wasn’t getting through. It was just a small hellion attack! It was purely coincidental! So what if before that moment there had never been any hellions this high up on the mountain?! It didn’t mean anything; it definitely didn’t mean that he needed to leave again!
Yet he set her down anyway with another apology before he turned to walk back down the path.
“Wait!” She cried, reaching out to grab the back of his coat, missing by mere centimeters. He paused anyway, so she didn’t waste the opportunity, “Don’t go! You only just got here! At least stay one night?”
It was the desperate pleas of a lonely little girl, and though Eizen had looked like he was considering it he still shook his head.
“It’s too dangerous still. I need to try something else,” he said before looking over his shoulder at her. He was smiling in a way that was supposed to be comforting, but she knew better than that, “I’ll be back, I promise.”
And for the second time in her life, she could only watch helplessly as he walked with his back to her, growing smaller and smaller the further he became. If she reached out, she could grab him, but her hand would only find empty air.
Her legs shook before she collapsed to her knees, her vision swimming with built up tears. Eizen wasn’t in sight anymore, so she dropped her hands to the ground, clenching her fists and disturbing the soil as she did.
Why? Why why why why why WHY?! He’d been so close to being home! If those stupid Garuda… If she had just…
A drop of water on the ground between her hands that wasn’t rain. It felt hard to breathe, like a hand had plunged into her chest and was now squeezing around her heart. Her eyes were burning, more droplets joining the first, and all she could think to do now was scream. A sharp, mournful scream. He still didn’t come back.
She received another letter soon after that. Another useless apology, another meaningless promise. Unlike before, she didn’t answer the first letter. Or the second, or the third, or the fortieth. Gifts came every few letters, some interesting, some weird. Though she accepted them and created a small pile of them, she saw them for what they were—an extension of his apologies that would accompany them. When the letter confirming what she suspected deep down came to her, she finally replied. She supposed she’d have to since Eizen no longer intended to come home again.
The letters and gifts continued for many centuries. Eizen didn’t apologize as much as he did before, and when reading his letters, he sounded happy to her. The realization was bittersweet—that her brother was happier among humans than he’d ever been around her, though she supposed it had always been the case. She just hadn’t wanted to see it.
Since Eizen no longer planned to come home, she supposed she wasn’t really bound to the mountain anymore like she had been, yet she stayed anyway. No matter how boring it was, it felt like she needed to be there.
As time went on, she noticed, Eizen’s letters became less lengthy, and then less frequent—a development that began to concern her when she received a single glove as a gift from one letter, then his boots several letters later. He’d explained that he bought a new pair, so he felt like she should have his old ones instead. A simple, logical explanation that she would’ve bought…if he hadn’t sounded like he was planning on dying.
The last letter she received was delivered to her on a summer day. It didn’t have a gift, but it was an activity report. Something or someone was bothering Maotelus’ domain, he’d said in the letter. So he was going to investigate and take care of the problem. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, a typical Eizen letter at that point. Except for the way it ended:
Remember that it’s harmful to hold on to the past. Let it go and keep facing forward. Always keep in mind that you steer your own ship.
- Uzfmiwuw Uexuv
It was philosophical nonsense that Eizen often wrote about in his letters. He’d never said them to her like that, though. Reading the words, a pit of anxiety formed in her stomach and remained there into the next day. Something was wrong, and she feared she knew what.
She was forcefully awoken several nights later by the weight of a domain, the likes of which she hadn’t felt in 1,000 years. It was suffocating, each painful breath she tried to take making her choke on the malevolent air. A brief flash of memory to the purple haze of a forest and she was on her feet quickly to look for the domain’s source. The malevolence here was thicker and more oppressive than the domain she remembered. What that meant, she didn’t know.
Stumbling outside, she was greeted by the sight of a familiar black shape against the purple hued sky, the sound of its roar—its scream—making her fall to her knees as she helplessly watched it fly around the peak. All of a sudden, she was 8 years old again, kidnapped by a dragon that had spontaneously transformed. The dragon back then hadn’t been Eizen, but this one…
“Eizen…” She said, her voice small and strained with tears that were beginning to fall down her cheeks.
Eizen finally came home, but he wasn’t Eizen anymore.
And so, what was the point of this trip down memory lane? Being able to remember so much in such detail was probably useful for some, she supposed, but it was utterly useless to her. She envied Lailah for being older than her and only barely remembering her own earliest memories, Zaveid for being third oldest and also only remembering bits and pieces, and Meebo who was too much of a baby to even have many memories to count yet.
These three seraphim, and even the humans she’d begrudgingly agreed to travel with, were far more blessed than she was. Blessed with the ability to forget. She wished she could forget, even a little bit.
“It’s harmful to hold on to the past,” had been Eizen’s last written words to her.
“You may not have journeyed together, but with this you can share the memories,” Rose had said as they all looked upon Eizen’s grave.
Such contradicting sentiments. Memories weren’t blessings to be passed around like stories at a campfire. Memories, especially for earth seraphim like her, were a curse. She was cursed with the weight of her whole lifetime of memories, and many more to come in the future. She always would be. Much like Eizen had been cursed from birth, perhaps this too was her own kind of curse. A curse she didn’t start feeling until he came home as a dragon—and again as she helped to bring 200 years of his suffering to an end.
Mountains are strong. They endure no matter what disasters are thrown at them. If the oceans rise, they become islands. If the earth shakes, they grow taller. If the wind erodes them, they only grow rounder. If a fire wipes away all life on its surface, the mountain beneath stands strong in the end. Eizen’s love of humanity and the journey he went on had given him many mountains of memories. If she continued her own journeys and made more memories, would she suffer the same fate as Eizen?
Title: Growing Pains Rating:G Character/Pairing: Sorey, Mikleo, Sorey/Mikleo Spoilers: None, set pre-game. Words:2,050 Summary: First he was tall. Then they were even. Now, he is small.
A/N: I brought Starbucks. This is my Day 2 entry for Sormik Week that I teased yesterday~! It took me all day to write (I also kept getting distracted).
Anxious, violet eyes watched closely as his hair was pressed down, allowing the brief shocks of lightning from the finger of their caretaker to safely make it to the wood above his head. Sorey held his breath, daring himself not to move as he let Gramps do his work.
This was one of the many traditions he and Mikleo had together. Another form of competition between them besides the various ones they came up with while exploring ruins. Unlike those competitions, though, Sorey was determined not to lose this one!
“All done,” said Gramps, prompting Sorey to quickly move away from the door frame so he could turn and look at where he had been.
“Yes!!” he shouted triumphantly, both fists going into the air when he saw how tall he was in comparison to Mikleo.
The water seraph’s face was anything but joyous.
“Wha—no fair!! Gramps you didn’t measure close enough to his head!”
The older seraph simply chortled softly and pet Mikleo’s head, assuring that he’d measured accurately and fairly. A pout formed on the water seraph’s face as he crossed his arms, which Sorey responded to with a beaming smile as he bounded closer to the other.
“A whooole inch~!” he sang-song, placing his hands behind his back, smile still plastered to his face and probably not leaving any time soon, “Mikleo, you know what that means, riiiiight~?”
For a moment they simply stared at each other, Sorey with his beaming face of sunshine and joy and Mikleo with his pouting face of dark annoyance. Finally, the water seraph breathed a resigned sigh, uncrossing his arms before turning on his heel to walk towards the door.
“Fine. Come on.”
Sorey made a happy sound as he went to follow the other young boy, throwing a quick thanks to Gramps over his shoulder as they left the house. He quickly caught up to Mikleo and walked in step next to him as they made the trek down the hill to the house they shared.
“Vanilla, right?” Mikleo asked without actually looking at him.
“Mhmm!” he hummed as he bounced happily next to the other, oblivious to his friend’s mood.
The tradition had always been like this, ever since they were three years old. Gramps would measure their heights and whoever was the tallest had to do something for the other. For a little while it’d been Mikleo who won these competitions, but the past few years had been going to Sorey. When Mikleo won, he’d ask for small, simple things. Like the Celestial Record or a certain kind of flower or new clothes. But when Sorey won there was only one thing to ask for, of course. Vanilla ice cream! Mikleo made the best, so what else would he ever ask for?
By the time they approached the small house, Sorey had come down from his victory high for the most part and was finally taking notice of the sour mood his friend had been in since they left Gramps’ house. Sorey frowned in thought as he took to observing his friend, sitting in the middle of the main room while watching Mikleo flit about. From the outside he probably didn’t seem any different than usual, but Sorey knew better. He could tell by the way the water seraph’s shoulders were tensed up as he set everything out and began making the ice cream. Normally his movements in this process were fluid—or at least as fluid as they could get with them being so young—but right now his movements were rigid. Sorey was confused.
“What’s wrong?” He finally asked, the question being the only thing said since they got to the house.
“Nothing.” Was the only response he got, but he could tell immediately it was a lie born of the other boy’s stubbornness, especially because he began pointedly stirring the sloshy mixture as soon as he said it.
Sorey’s frown deepened. Of the two of them, he was the worst liar by far, but Mikleo wasn’t that great at it either. With Mikleo’s back to him he shifted so he could stand up again.
“Come oooon,” he cooed, crossing the distance to the other boy and draping himself over Mikleo’s back, “you’re a bad liar and you know it.”
He wasn’t tall enough to properly rest his chin on Mikleo’s head, so he settled for resting it on one of the other boy’s shoulders. He got no response from the seraph, but he did notice Mikleo’s stirring become even more pointed, angry almost.
“Are you…are you really mad about me being taller than you again?” He blinked curiously as the thought came to him, shifting his gaze to the side so he can observe his face, noting the pout that had returned.
“No.”
By which he meant, yes.
Sorey’s frown remained. Why was Mikleo so adamant on lying? It wasn’t like this was a big deal, was it? Well, it was a competition, so he could understand Mikleo being upset about losing but…he never got upset like this the very rare times he’d win a ruin competition. Why now? Why this?
“I’m sorry,” he breathes it out in a tiny whisper, turning his face down to nuzzle into Mikleo’s shoulder like an apologetic puppy as he tightened his arms in a more proper hug around the smaller boy.
He both heard and felt a heavy sigh shake through the slightly smaller frame, prompting him to lift his head again in curiosity. The pout was now replaced with a regretful frown. Sorey wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.
“It’s fine. It’s not like you can help it.” Which was true, but still…
“But it upsets you…why?” His voice is smaller than he means it to sound, but he honestly just wants the other boy to be honest with him. They always were, usually.
Mikleo sighed again and paused his ice cream making to set the mixing bowl down, prompting Sorey to unlink his arms from around the other, though he didn’t step away too far. The seraph turned to face him now, expression twisted in such a way that made a pang of guilt hit Sorey in the chest.
“I’m not…It’s just…” A frustrated sigh as Mikleo tries to find words, “It’s just, this is the third, maybe fourth year in a row, right? I was taller than you for a long time, and then one year we were almost the same height, and now you’re taller than me! And you keep being taller than me! How am I supposed to catch up or be taller again if you—if you keep growing like this?!”
Sorey brought a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, not sure what to say to that.
“Well, yeah, but…Gramps said this is normal, didn’t he? We’re both growing up, and didn’t he say something about humans and seraphim growing at diff—”
“That’s not the point!”
Sorey jumped with a start at how loud Mikleo had shouted, his eyes wide and mouth slightly hung open mid-sentence. Mikleo’s eyebrows were scrunched in anger, his teeth showing from how much his jaw was clenched and his hands were curled into tiny fists.
He’d barely recovered before Mikleo continued his tirade.
“I’m older. I’m supposed to protect you. I’m supposed to be bigger. How can I protect you if I’m not taller than you?” And like water breaking through a dam, the tension that had been in his body from anger suddenly flowed out of him all at once, and with it his voice became quieter, but Sorey could still hear him, “How am I supposed to do the only thing I’m good for if I…if I’m not…”
He didn’t get to finish because his voice cracked around a choked sob and it was only now that Sorey noticed the tears that had formed at the corner of Mikleo’s beautiful eyes. The sight of them made him forget any momentary shock he felt and immediately spring into action.
“Mik. Hey. Mikleo…” he whispered softly, as if afraid that speaking louder than that would shatter the fragile air between them.
He stepped closer to the smaller boy once more, quickly enveloping Mikleo in a tight hug and holding him to his chest. Mikleo didn’t fight, he merely grabbed two fistfuls of the back of Sorey’s shirt and cried quietly into his chest.
Mikleo never got this openly emotional, especially around him. Usually Mikleo was the picture of strength, grace, and beauty—as far as Sorey was concerned. That’s exactly why he sobered up so quickly to treat this as seriously as he is, because if Mikleo was being this emotional, it meant the issue was serious.
For the moment he just stood still and held Mikleo to him, one hand smoothing through silky white hair while the other one ran up and down the other’s back in a soothing gesture. The ice cream was all but forgotten.
When it finally feels like Mikleo’s calmed down enough he dares to speak, “Are you okay?” It’s the first question he thinks to ask, because that’s what’s most important right now.
He doesn’t get a verbal response, but the feeling of Mikleo nodding is answer enough.
“Good. It’s my turn to talk now.”
Carefully, he releases Mikleo from the hug, though he keeps his hands gently on his shoulders as he holds the other boy at arm’s length. He wants to be able to see Mikleo’s face before he continues talking.
“Who said you had to be tall to protect someone? Who said you had to stop doing that after a certain height, anyway?” It was Sorey’s turn to pout now, mostly at the unknown people who’d put these ideas into the seraph’s head, “You’re so strong, and cool, and beautiful, and perfect. It doesn’t matter if you’re tall or not. Protecting each other doesn’t have to be a competition, does it? I’ll protect you whether you’re shorter or taller than me, and you’ll protect me regardless too, right?”
His lips curve into a warm, kind smile as he moves one of his hands to gently tuck some of Mikleo’s hair behind his ear. The seraph’s face was stunned, but the tears had at least seemed to stop for now.
“I’m sorry if it feels like I took something away from you. You still have it, and you always will. As long as you want to have it!”
Mikleo’s stunned expression melted away into a more contemplative one. A soft hum was all he got in the way of a verbal response before Mikleo decided to speak, “It’s okay, you’re right. I was being stupid.” As he made this comment he turned his head away a bit, his cheeks warm with a faint blush.
Sorey’s smile grew and he shook his head.
“You weren’t.” Because it was the truth, after all.
The mixture in the bowl had since melted again into liquid, but right now the boys’ focus still remained on each other. Sorey made a thoughtful sound as he slid his hands down Mikleo’s arms to hold the water seraph’s hands instead.
“Hey. You may be shorter now, but your height is good for one thing, Mikleo.”
The other boy’s brows furrowed in confusion at the statement, silently asking for explanation.
“It means I can do this now~!”
And without another word, Sorey leaned forward, tilting his head up only just enough to press his lips gingerly to Mikleo’s forehead. He held it for only a short moment before leaning back to beam down at Mikleo.
“See? You’re the perfect height for that now. That’s something, right?”
For the second time that night Mikleo was struck speechless, his cheeks steadily growing warmer as the kiss finally dawns on him. He ducks his head, largely to hide how red his face is, but he also can’t disagree with the statement.
“Hm…I suppose I can live with that.”
The victory ice cream was left forgotten as the two boys decided to head to bed, curled up together like usual. They were young, so they still had a lot of growing left to do. How much, only time would tell. But Mikleo was alright with that, at least for now.
Title: The World Will Heal Rating:G Character/Pairing: Sorey, Maotelus, very light implied Sorey/Mikleo Spoilers: End-Game Spoilers Words:825 Summary: As he gets ready for his long nap with Maotelus, Sorey takes a moment to reflect and dream on the world to come.
A/N: I’m sorry to inform you that this isn’t the next chapter of Stolen Kisses. That update will be coming soon though!! I promise!! I just….gotta….stop feeling inadequate ; v ;.
This is instead my entry for Day One of Sormik Week. I used the prompt “healing” and as you can see, it’s very Sormik Lite because of how I decided to take the prompt. The rest of my week entries will be much more heavily Sormik I promise. This one also makes use of my not-yet-published “Always a Dragon” theory.
In the wake of the final battle—when the resounding thud of Heldalf’s back against the stone throne reached his ears—Sorey allowed himself a moment of relief. It was over. It was finally over. They’d achieved the hardest part of what they’d set out to accomplish, but now a new task lay ahead of him.
The moment the dragon appeared, momentarily blinding him with his light, Sorey knew that the pure being hovering just above the now-human man was Maotelus. Their missing Maotelus. By now he’d met a number of dragons on his journey, so he knew the feeling associated with witnessing the pain and suffering of a fallen seraph.
But this time…this time felt different. He wasn’t able to dwell on it much as he made his slow walk towards Heldalf, ending his long, tortured life with a single, decisive thrust of the sword Rose left him. Nor was he able to dwell on it in the moment when his chest swelled with relief at the sight of the spirits of his friends he’d been unsure would survive. The cool caress of Mikleo’s light against his cheek before he watched them fly up to rejoin Rose was the only good night kiss he was going to get for the next who-knows-how-many-long years.
He was only really able to study and dwell when his attention was finally on the great dragon, floating before him now. Despite the overwhelming malevolence that surrounded them like a cage, there was none being emitted from the white dragon. Unlike Tiamat, unlike Eizen, this seraph did not cast a malevolent domain. If anything, all he cast was an aura of purifying light that warmed Sorey as he drew closer to Maotelus, reaching out to press his hand gently against the large snout.
Even in appearance there was nothing malevolent about this dragon. Where Eizen and Tiamat had had sharp spikes and horns, this dragon’s horns were blunted and smooth. Incapable of hurting someone. Even the spikes that were along his arms—while they looked sharp—were not nearly as pointed as the spikes he remembered from Tiamat or Eizen, or even the hellionized Maotelus they’d fought just a while ago. Maotelus’ wings were also much different from the wings he’d seen before, and the wings the other dragons had. Covered in scales, but much more feather-like now in shape. Overall the dragon before him was softer and purer than any dragon he’d fought before.
So this is how you’ve always been… he thought, certain that the seraph could hear him.
If he thought back far enough, he could remember an old man in the Shrinechurch saying that Maotelus was said to always appear as a sacred creature of light. He hadn’t considered what that meant at the time, but looking at the pure dragon now, it made sense. This whole time he’d thought that Maotelus, along with the land, would need to be healed. But now that he’s seen the seraph’s true form, it was clear the only thing in need of healing was the land itself.
That was the main goal here, and he closed his eyes as he felt the seraph’s warm purification begin to surround him with his hand still resting on the dragon’s snout. It was time for him to sleep, like he’d told Mikleo not too long ago on that Lastonbell balcony. As long as he was here, the malevolence of this place and the world wouldn’t be allowed to touch Maotelus ever again.
The dragon stirred beneath his hand, but only to briefly open his eyes before closing them again, disappearing in a familiar flash of light before Sorey felt his presence settle in alongside his own. He welcomed it, holding his arms to his chest as if he were holding something precious. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel a cocoon of warm light forming around them, keeping them aloft in the air.
As he begins to feel the weight of sleep on his mind he can’t help but think about the world he hopes to wake up to see. A world with little to no malevolence. A world with no war. A world where seraphim and humans live together again, in harmony. A world that’s healed from the sins of his distant forebear. Maotelus shows him what that kind of world used to be like, thousands of years ago. He remains confident that humanity has since learned and will continue to learn. He must, for the sake of the future he wants to build.
When he finally succumbs to sleep, the last remnants of his conscious thought are on his water seraph. The one who will be most affected by his absence. It’ll be hard, and he’ll have a lot of apologizing to do when he wakes up, but Mikleo is strong. He’s always been strong.
The world will heal, just like he knows Mikleo will too.
Title: Water is Wet Rating:PG Character/Pairing:Sorey/Mikleo Spoilers: None in this chapter, set very early in the game after Alisha leaves the village Words:~1,755 Summary (for the whole fic): Sorey and Mikleo aren’t usually big on PDA, especially once their party of two begins to grow into a family of nosy seraphim and humans. But like a tea pot on a stove, you can’t hold back passion and affection that has always been freely given. This is a chronicle of all the times on their journey when Sorey–and sometimes Mikleo–sneak in a little affection.
A/N: SO I PROMISED MYSELF THAT I WOULD NOT START WRITING ANY OF THE ACCUMULATED SORMIK IDEAS UNTIL I’D BEATEN THE GAME. Well friends that’s partially a lie because I’m only somewhat near the final boss. But these ideas were beginning to gnaw and claw at my brain so I figured whatever I’ll at least write these up until the point where I need to wait to have completed the game.
So as the summary implies, this fic has a similar sort of concept to LFM in that it’s a collection of one shots related to a specific topic. In this case, I really wanted to write all the times in the game I could see the two of them sneaking in some smooches. Mikleo’s canonically more private about their relationship so he’s the one that mostly shies away from PDA which is why this fic is called “Stolen Kisses” because Sorey had to get creative lmao.
This is also the first time I’ve written either of them and this chapter is written from Sorey’s perspective. Let me tell you, I have respect for everyone ever that RPs Sorey because holy shit. I won’t spend a lot of time explaining how my writing character pieces goes for fear of sounding crazy, but basically–syncing with Sorey is inviting horrible amounts of purple prose into your head. I didn’t fully sync with him until about 800 words into this and let me tell you. You can see it. You can see the exact moment he fully took over.
Enjoy my first contribution to the English-release Sormik fic pile. And don’t worry, there’s plenty more where this came from. 13 more chapters to be specific. Special thanks to @nelfes and @cherrim for being my awesome betas!
Also, one more note, this whole fic is Established Relationship because honestly, anything BUT already established feels wrong with how they act in canon.
Mikleo is beautiful. He’s beautiful in the same way water is wet and the sky is blue. This was a truth of the world Sorey had always known and always asserted and it continued to be true even with Elysia at their backs.
The air gets cold around the mountaintop at this time of night and it shows in the small puffs of warm air leaving his mouth as he walks in step behind the water Seraph. The soft crunch of the grass beneath both their feet promises frost in the morning.
Despite the urgency behind their departure and the fact it was Sorey’s own decision, he can’t help but let his eyes wander their surroundings. He’s not sure when they’ll be back, so he wants to savor what he can of his home. This clean air, the bright canopy of stars hanging above their heads and the peaceful feeling of knowing they can walk like this without a Hellion attacking them. He brings his gaze back down from the stars to the distant barrier of clouds that shield Elysia from the world. His eyes only linger a moment before shifting to his best friend again, still walking a few paces in front of him. Even though there was urgency, Mikleo wasn’t walking fast either.
“I think we’re about halfway down the mountain by now.” Mikleo read his mind, like always. “We’ll get there in time, so don’t worry about it.”
A smile tugs at his lips at his friend’s poorly concealed concern, the knowledge of it warming his heart. He picks his pace up a bit so he can walk in step alongside the other boy, beaming a teasing smile at the Seraph.
“Aw, so you do care!” He quickly side steps the half-hearted punch that he gets in response with an amused laugh.
Despite the darkness around them, the moon is bright enough to reveal the cute dusting of a blush on Mikleo’s cheeks.
“S-Shut up! I only said anything because I can practically hear you worrying. It’s annoying,” or so his friend claims even though the words lack the bite they would have if he actually meant it.
“Mhmm,” is all he responds with in a tone that conveys that he doesn’t believe Mikleo for a second.
Sure, Sorey knows he himself is a terrible liar and Mikleo knows it too. But the water seraph was just as terrible of a liar as he was, in his opinion.
“Thanks, Mikleo.”
“Don’t thank me.”
They continue to walk quietly side-by-side, Sorey’s hand eventually gravitating towards Mikleo’s as it’s naturally wont to do. The water seraph seems to anticipate it, because about halfway there his hand reaches out too and they wordlessly intertwine their fingers. It’s familiar and comfortable, just like Mikleo.
He lifts his gaze to the stars above them again, slightly dimmer than they’d been moments before.
“The stars are beautiful tonight, don’t you think?”
From the corner of his eye he can see the water Seraph look up as well with a thoughtful hum.
“So they are,” he agrees, the smile he allows only when they’re alone gracing his features, “You know, if the lower world’s Malevolence is really as bad as Alisha made it sound…they might not see quite as many stars as we can here.”
He responds in turn with his own thoughtful hum of agreement. He hadn’t thought about that part. Stargazing was something he and Mikleo often did in Elysia on nights when the Celestial Record had been read at least eight times and neither of them could get to sleep. But, he thinks, even if the stars won’t be as bright in the lower lands it’ll be okay because—
“’It’s okay Mikleo, because in losing the stars we’ll gain a whole world of ruins!’, am I right?”
A soft laugh bubbles up from his chest at how accurate the impression was and he gently squeezes where their hands are connected as he answers, “Exactly!”
Ahead of them a ways he notices a small rock outcropping along the mountainside, the fog of the clouds they were walking through seeming to fade near it. He tugs gently on their linked hands to catch his friend’s attention, guiding them both through the fog and toward the cliff. Passing through the barrier of the clouds that concealed Elysia’s existence was something neither of them had done before. With the way the fog started to thin gradually into a fine mist, he feels that just a little beyond it, they could both see the whole world. He squeezes Mikleo’s hand in his own to silently convey his excitement, receiving an equal squeeze in return.
With each step forward the mist grew thinner and thinner and Sorey could feel his heart beginning to beat loudly in his ears in a way it had only done so a few times before, a thrum of excitement radiating out from his heart and bursting into a wide grin on his face.
“Mikleo, look!” he exclaims, unlinking their hands to allow himself to burst through the last threads of mist and run towards the cliff.
He stops a safe distance from the edge, gazing out toward the view of the world below with wide-eyed wonder. Far in the distance on the horizon that he vows to someday reach, the sun is beginning to rise with its first rays bathing the world in a pale yellow light and creating a gradient of blacks and purples across the sky. He feels almost breathless at the sight.
“This is our world,” he states, voice light and airy in a reflection of the wonder he feels.
Reluctantly, he averts his gaze from the gorgeous view to turn and observe Mikleo’s reaction. Once again, the air leaves his lungs and gets caught in his throat at the sight he sees instead.
Much like his own, the seraph’s eyes are wide and shimmering a bit in what Sorey recognizes to be Mikleo’s own version of excitement. The morning light bathes them both in soft hues of yellow, pink and purple, but the colors dance against his friend’s features like a shimmering symphony of incandescence. The soft hues of pink swirl and mix into the purple of his eyes, making them stand out more brilliantly than they normally do. The pale yellows waltz across the white and aquamarine of his hair, making it seem to Sorey as if Mikleo has a halo of multi-colored light. It reminds him all at once just how beautiful, just how amazing this boy really is.
He forgets to breathe. He doesn’t even realize his mouth was hanging open until Mikleo’s gaze shifts to him, confusion and concern replacing the previous wonder.
“What’s wrong?” Mikleo’s head is tilted now slightly, in a way that shifts his bangs just slightly and allowing the light of the sun to catch the gold of his circlet.
A sudden inhale as the memory of breathing returns to him and he closes his mouth once he takes a few deep breaths in order to offer the other boy a reassuring smile. He can feel his heart beating loud and rhythmic against the bones of his ribcage and in his ears still, but for an entirely different reason now.
“Nothing,” he answers finally, truthfully, because in all actuality everything feels right in this moment.
He holds his hand out wordlessly to Mikleo, his expression as soft and warm as his beating heart, “C’mere.”
The concern has since left the other boy’s eyes, but a hint of confusion still remains. Despite that, their hands find each other again and Sorey gently pulls Mikleo closer to him, leaning down to press their lips together. His friend is only startled for a moment before he feels the other leaning into it as well.
They linger like this for who knows how long, the world having dissolved into a condensed bubble where only he and Mikleo reside. For just a moment, all worries of Alisha being in danger have left him. For just this moment, he can pretend that they’re setting out on the world-wide adventure they always dreamed about, instead of racing against an unknown clock to protect a new friend.
He doesn’t break the kiss and right himself until his lungs begin to scream for air, though he keeps his eyes fixed on Mikleo’s face, still admiring the beauty of this boy he’s lucky to have. Mikleo is slower to react, still recovering from the unexpectedness of the kiss. Their hands still linked palm-to-palm, the seraph averts his gaze shyly, Sorey now noticing the new shade of pink being added to his friend’s cheeks.
A comfortable silence hangs between them, Sorey’s eyes wandering still over the sight of the other boy’s face, wanting to savor it before the sun rises too high and loses this kaleidoscope of colors.
Finally, Mikleo lifts his gaze to Sorey again, though the tinge of pink remains on his cheeks. He opens his mouth as if he’s about to speak before closing it again, pausing for only a moment before giving it another try,
“W-What was that for?”
The question only makes the grin from before return. When he answers, his voice is soft and gentle, achingly honest in a way only Mikleo ever gets to hear it,
“Because you’re beautiful. And…” he trails off as he shifts his gaze back out over the cliff, the hills below becoming more visible as the sun draws higher, “we’re finally seeing the world below the mountain. So, I wanted the first thing we share together in this world to be a kiss.”
Mikleo listens attentively, as usual, his face growing visibly redder as Sorey goes on. He casts his gaze to the side again shyly, but makes no move to disagree. Instead he hums in a way that’s both acknowledgement and agreement and for Sorey, that’s all the answer he needs.
“Let’s go,” he says softly, though his voice is beginning to go back to his earlier excitement.
Mikleo nods with verbal agreement and together they return to their walk down the mountain. Keeping one hand intertwined with the other’s, they make their way down the slope to the forest at the mountain’s base.
Sorey decides as their hands gently swing between them that no matter what happens with Alisha or with anything else that may occur in this new world of theirs, none of it will be a problem because he has Mikleo with him.
Because water is wet, the sky is blue, and Mikleo is beautiful.
Hi guys, I need to talk about something that has recently happened at a discord server buddy of mine@SkiaWolf who has just had their fanfic stolen by a hack on amazon. Some of you have even read this tales of Zestiria fic it’s called Divine Messenger. It’s great, worth the read just not from a bitch or whatever they are that has stolen this fic and is currently selling it on amazon. And it’s verbatim they haven’t even bothered to change the names.
And upon further inspection all of this person’s stuff appears to have been stolen from other writers. All different fandoms. And this is disgusting. We as fanfic writers write because we love it not because we make money. Ko-fi and patreon stuff is nice but let’s face we’d still be writing this shit regardless. That’s just a nice occasional bonus. Those who rewrite and sell it to the masses still edit their works and polish them up with the hopes that they’ll just be well loved. We do this out of love and to steal our love verbatim and try to pass it as your own is disgusting. And for this reason I would love for people to help me with outing this person for thinking they can get away with it
PLEASE PLEASE HELP TO SPREAD THE WORD AND LET’S TAKE THIS BITCH DOWN TOGETHER!
Rating: T (for non-explicitly implied sexual content)
Written for @sormikweek 2020 Day 8: New Moon - New beginnings; Blank page / El Nath - Neutrality for good or evil; Symbolically called the Shepherd
A/N: This is by far my favorite piece that I wrote for the entire week. It’s also the piece that started the whole idea to use this week to expand this universe that I’m really excited to build on and share. Expect not only the rest of the week’s prompts, but many more independent works from this world.
“This world” being a BBC Merlin AU in which magic is illegal, Mikleo is a sorcerer hiding who he is, and Sorey is a prince living his best sunshine life. In case you haven’t heard that spiel already.
Mikleo turned from the spellbook he was reading with a smile on his lips, sure that Sorey would greet him with a matching one. But Sorey wasn’t even looking at him, let alone smiling. He was standing by the window, arm braced against the stone wall above it, staring out into the courtyard with a shadowed look on his face. Mikleo’s smile faded. He’d been catching Sorey with that kind of look on his face more often these days than he liked.
“Where did that come from?” Sorey offered a half-hearted shrug and stayed silent. Mikleo didn’t buy it for a second. He closed the book and stood from his spot, crossing over to the other side of the window. “Is this about the coronation tomorrow?” Sorey winced like he’d been hit, which was as good as an admission in Mikleo’s eyes. “Sorey, it’s okay to be nervous-”
“That’s not it,” Sorey said, shaking his head insistently. “It’s not nerves.”
“Then why have you been thinking about changing your name?”
Sorey’s jaw worked like he was wrestling with the words inside his mouth. Mikleo waited patiently, leaning against the wall as he watched his prince.
King, Mikleo mentally corrected himself. Today was the last day that Sorey would be a prince. Although, in Mikleo’s opinion, Sorey had been a king for a long while already; it just hadn’t been official until now.
Title:Far Longer Than Forever - Chapter 2 Fandom: Tales of Zestiria Pairing: Sormik Rating:T Summary: One year after his mysterious disappearance, Prince Mikleo seeks help to break the curse he is under so he can return to his kingdom and the man he loves. Author’s Note: A little sequel scene to Far Longer than Forever. Written for @sormikweek for the prompt New Moon:New Beginnings.
Alisha has known Rose long enough to be familiar with her streak of spontaneity, which is perhaps the most important thing to know about her girlfriend: that before she is a person of action or words, she’s a woman of out-of-the-blue ideas. It no longer surprises her when, on their way back to their hotel room, following the light of the low garden lamps that line the sand-dusty path, Rose suddenly grabs Alisha’s hand and pulls them to a stop.
“Rose?” Alisha hums. “Are you all right?”
“Lisha,” Rose whispers, turned away. Her eyes are trained on the intersecting pathway to the left, where the tall hedges that separate the beach from the resort bend upward in an arc overhead. When she spins around to face her again, her red hair fans out around her chin. “Hey. You wanna see the ocean at night?”
Thanks a lot for all your suggestions I apologize for not including all of them in the poll, but I couldn’t think of enough prompts for some of them. I’ll keep them all in mind tho, they could be useful for next year, or in a little while ;)
Please share this post as much as possible!
Hi again :D
We already have 52 votes, and I’d like to use this opportunity to bring out a little problem: 7 persons shared this tweet, and only 2 reblogged it on tumblr.
As you might be aware the participation rates of sormikweek drop every year, that’s normal, it happens in every fandom, but we can try to bring new participants by sharing about this event as much as we can.
The less you retweet/reblog, the less person will be aware of the event, and the less content will be created for the occasion. Voting is nice of course, thank you so much for being so many to wish for new sormik content, but it won’t matter if there’s no one to bring you the content you asked for.
So please retweet/reblog, talk about the event on the social medias you use so we can reach as many people as possible and have a new successful sormikweek.
Now I plan on keeping this event alive for as long as I can, for as long as it sparks joy and someone ask for it, even if it’s just one person, but the more participants we can bring, the more fun we will have
(Also friendly reminder that this applies for your favorite writers/artists too, if you only like their creations/commission informations they won’t gain anything from it, sure liking is nice but many of them need exposition in order to live. So please hit that retweet/reblog button, it’s free, only take a second, and it can make someone’s day. And don’t forget to leave them a comment while you’re at it, especially to writers ‘cause they deserve more love than they get.)
