[Extra - Headcanon Ficlets]

[nerdeology]

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Extra - Treasure

[nerdeology]

"The dragon’s thrashing weakens and all Sorey can see is a little boy humming as he weaves together blades of grass, wind tugging at his robes and hair."
[ x ]


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A small boy sits alone in the grass, just outside the shade of the great stone archway that acts as entrance and barrier, both, to his village. His fingers move deftly as they weave together a set of long, soft blades of grass, slightly damp to keep them from drying out. Every once in a while a gentle wind blows, and he pauses his movement to keep from losing his grip on his work. What doesn't pause is the sound that the wind carries away from him; he's humming a tune to himself, a gentle song with no words.

"What are you singing?"

The boy looks up as he is approached by another- about the same age as he, but decidedly different in every other way. His brown hair is a tousled mess, his clothes grass-stained and muddy, a gap between his teeth reveals itself as he grins. His new companion sets a small tin on the grass and plops down in front of it, looking as if he'd just conquered the world.

"It's not singing, Sorey, it's humming. I don't know what it's called, though. I heard it from Gramps- he says we're too young to know where it's from." He leans in, trying to peer into the tin, but the lid is sealed tight. At least he remembered to do that much, this time. "You're done?"

Sorey shuffles forward an inch or two and tugs the lid free, lifting it up to show the sloshing white liquid contained within. "Sure am! The whole thing, just like you said."

"That took forever. Did you spill any?"

"Mikleo..." Sorey pouts, but when no mercy is offered, he relents. "I didn't spill it, Ellie did! It was almost full and she kicked it right over."

"That's because you squeeze too hard. If she doesn't like what you're doing, of course she's gonna kick."

"That's what Mason said."

"Well, Mason's right."

Sorey sticks his tongue out, covering the goat's milk once more and leaving it in the shade of the arch until they're ready for it. He'd been promised ice cream later, to celebrate. And speaking of which- he shifts closer again, grinning abruptly, his eyes bright and eager. "Hey, did you get it? You did, didn't you?"

Mikleo says nothing for a long moment, keeping the other boy waiting in suspense while he continues folding the grass together. His friend squirms, practically bouncing where he sits, until finally neither of them can bear it any longer, and one hand leaves the weaving just long enough to move his pale hair away from his forehead, revealing what wasn't there this morning.

"Whoooaaaa, he did! He really gave it to you!" Sorey gawks at the thin golden circlet, one hand half-lifting to reach for it before he changes his mind and grips the grass between them, instead. The emerald glitters in the sunlight, clean and polished as if it hadn't spent the last five years on a shelf too high for them to reach.

"Uh-huh." Mikleo's hand drops again, tying together another row of the grass, but even he can't hide his proud smile. "Gramps said I could keep it if it fit me this year."

"And it did."

"You can tell by looking that it does."

Sorey hums in a non-committal way and leans back, his fingers toying with the loose grass around them. "How come you get one and I don't?"

"Dummy, it's because it was on me when Gramps found us."

"I know that." The brunet sets a blade between his thumbs, fingers folding together before he presses them against his lips and blows. The honking sound of a sickly goose echoes across the meadow; two of the goats in the distance lift their heads, while the others carry on grazing as if nothing at all had happened. Mikleo's reaction is much the same. "I was just wondering."

Mikleo stretches a leg out to nudge Sorey's knee with his bare toes. "You're jealous of my treasure."

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"Not!"

"Too."

"Mikleooooo!"

"Ah-- stop, stop," Mikleo giggles helplessly, pulling his foot back as Sorey starts to tickle it. "Here, close your eyes. ...Don't look at me like that, just for a minute!"

Sorey hesitantly obeys, though Mikleo waits until he's done the initial peeking (twice, as he's expecting a retaliatory tickle) before he reaches down and pulls something from his basket. He closes the distance between them for a moment, and only when he grants permission does Sorey open both eyes again, hands lifting to touch whatever had been placed around his head. "...Grass?"

"Kind of, I guess," Mikleo scrutinizes him, as if trying to decide whether or not the change is good. Evidently satisfied, he nods to himself, brushing some scraps of grass off his robe. "I knew you'd be jealous."

"I'm not-"

"Are too."

Sorey huffs, opting to tug whatever it is off his head and look rather than argue. In his hands, he finds a woven grass headband - the grass from the cliffside by the pond, the yellow kind - with a flower in the middle, a spotted daisy with green center sprouts. It looks like- "The circlet! You made this for me?"

Mikleo's expression is skeptical, leaning backwards with one eyebrow raised. "I didn't make it for the goats. I- no, hey!!"

It's too late; Sorey's already tackled him to the ground, hugging him tight, grass weavings crushed between their small bodies. "Thank you, thank you, Mikleo! It'll be my treasure, too!"

"...W-well... it better be... I worked hard on it, you know."

Sorey pulls back, offering Mikleo another toothy grin, and proudly plants the half-squished and now misshapen crown back on his head. It's at a jaunty angle and the flower's already fraying, but he looks like he'd just been handed some kind of priceless relic of ages past, so Mikleo doesn't complain for once. He nudges Sorey to urge him up, retrieving his basket while Sorey fetches the pail, and together they walk back through the village gate, fingers entwined as they'd done a hundred times before.

"Hey, can you teach me that song?"

"Do you even know how to hum?"

"...Teach me that, too!"

"You're impossible, Sorey."

Prompt - True Heart [from egg]

[nerdeology]

When Sorey asks him one day why he keeps staring like that, Mikleo doesn't answer. Instead he asks: "What do you see, when you look at me?"

Sorey doesn't understand the question. He says, "I see you, Mikleo," and when he recognizes that it's not the answer Mikleo was looking for, he goes on to describe what he sees. Features, traits, personality, charms. It's a very Sorey response and by the time it's over Mikleo is red-faced and shoving him away, irritably overwhelmed with compliments he hadn't been seeking. Sorey laughs, and by then he'd forgotten his original query.

Mikleo watches him run off to take care of some household chore he'd promised he would finish by sundown, and he thinks, very carefully, about what he sees.

There is a lightness to Sorey's soul, a bright and gentle flame to his aura, a kind that doesn't appear when he looks at the other seraphim. He's always had it. It was there when they were babies, weak and fluttering and still in development. It was there the first time they ventured into the ruins together, burning like a fire in the darkness, a beacon for Mikleo to follow if they ever got separated. It was there when Sorey grew horribly ill one summer, panting and feverish and crying, the light barely a flicker, a candle in a stormy wind, and even Mikleo's presence couldn't do much more than keep it alive until he recovered.

It's not a domain- he knows what a domain feels like. He's lived within the protection of one his entire life. Sorey is different.

He asks Gramps, then, because Sorey had asked him, and he hates not having an answer. Gramps smiles, blows his pipe, and says one simple thing that forever changes the way Mikleo sees the world:

"Seraphim can see into the hearts of humans, child."

His heart, Mikleo decides, is beautiful.

He does try to stare a little bit less after that, though. How does he explain something like that? Sorey can't see it. Fleeting though their lives may be, and perhaps some are as foul and poisonous as Gramps says they are, but humans have something seraphim do not. Looking at Sorey, seeing what he sees, knowing what he knows, Mikleo wonders how anyone can hate them. The caution, he can understand. He's heard all about what humans have done to the world below, and he trusts Gramps. He trusts every single seraph living in Elysia regardless of their opinion of humans. He's heard them all, he's weighed them against one another. Sometimes he starts to resent them too, on behalf of his fellow seraphim, because it's clear that they've been hurt in the past, and he can't bear the thought of anyone hurting his family. He resents them, he fears them. Humans are nothing but trouble.

And then Sorey calls his name, and Mikleo sees him, sees his heart, and he thinks to himself yet again:

How can anyone hate humans?

It's hard to process sometimes. He recognizes the inner conflict for what it is, and he struggles with it a little. Gramps sits down with him and helps him sort it out, warning against malevolence, but the uncertainty of it never really goes away. He wonders what the hearts of other humans must look like, if Sorey is some kind of special exception to the rule. Are they dark and ugly, or has their light merely been corroded by malevolence the way the other seraphim fear so terribly? Is that what he'll see, when he and Sorey eventually leave Elysia to explore the world the way they've always dreamed?

He wonders, but he's afraid to find out. He's afraid to leave, because he's already been warned- Sorey will want to be with them. Sorey will want to stay with them, find someone to love, start a family. Live the way that humans do. He's afraid of so many things.

Will Sorey's family welcome him, the way Sorey does?

Will Sorey's lover understand him the way he does?

Will he be allowed to stay as long as Sorey lives, or will he be told to go home and leave them alone?

Will Sorey's light become dark and corroded as a normal human's heart must be?

He can't bear it. He can't even stand the thought.

Even if he doesn't want me anymore, even if he finds a new life, even he turns his eyes elsewhere for so long that he can't see me anymore.

I'll stay.

I'll protect him.

"You're doing it again," Sorey says to him, poking him in the side, his expression playful and full of joy beneath the confusion he wears so openly on his face. "Just what are you looking at?"

Something beautiful, is the truth. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. A heart like the sun, brilliant and kind and safe and wonderful.

He pokes back, and Sorey laughs and dodges away, swatting at his hands. So bright. So very bright. "Just you," he says, shrugging his shoulders as nonchalantly as he can.

It's no less the truth.

[nerdeology]

By the epilogue, Mikleo had one cape for every century Sorey was gone.

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At the start of the third century without Sorey, Mikleo added a third trail of material at his back- three capes, not two. It reminded him of the Shepherd's tunic, though the colour and embroidery were still his own.

Edna noticed, and teased him, as she so often did. "You'll get tired of that," she'd commented at one point, as more years passed and more tails were added. "You'll be so back-heavy you'll have to be rolled from place to place." Zaveid had laughed. Lailah had smiled in that way of hers and said nothing.

"If it becomes an inconvenience, I'll rethink it," had been his reply, calmly sewing the material into place. He'd gotten much better at not bickering with her, although he still had his moments. He didn't think he'd get tired of it; Sorey wouldn't be gone long enough for that.

At the dawn of the six hundredth year, though, he was beginning to feel the weight. (At least his shoulders were getting stronger.)