faesphere | Love Makes You Crazy

aka why mikleo did a dumb

Mikleo's thought process throughout all of this has sort of been this love-stricken panic that he's totally unfamiliar with, mostly due to the fact that while Sorey's given him plenty of reasons to worry growing up, there's always been someone more experienced or capable of supporting him nearby to help. Back in Elysia it was always Gramps and the other seraphim- when Sorey was hurt or sick and it was something Mikleo couldn't fix, the others were there to keep him focused, and when they left home, Lailah entered the picture very soon after to pick up the slack. The fact is, Drift Fleet has been the first time Mikleo and Sorey have been left entirely on their own for a long span of time, and while they've had friends and the other seraphim along for the ride, there hasn't really been a figure of authority that Mikleo fully respects and depends on to be the front-runner for dealing with these situations. Zaveid probably comes the closest, being the oldest, but he's never been given the respect that Lailah does, certainly not from Mikleo. Zaveid doesn't act seriously so Mikleo doesn't take him seriously. And Dezel's too inexperienced and close to their age to fill the gap, and frankly speaking he tends to be too self-interested for it even if he was older.

So that leaves Mikleo in more or less the situation he'd mentioned to Sorey in the interfaith center months ago- a too-young seraph with way too many questions about his own kind, about the Shepherd mythology, and more importantly about how to perform his sub lord duties without a Prime Lord to guide them. He doesn't know how to recognize and deal with malevolence within a Shepherd. He doesn't know how to help Sorey maintain a balance between enjoying the adventure and worrying about back home. And since he's never placed near as much weight on the Shepherd's duties as Sorey - it's important to him because it's important to Sorey, for the most part, and because it's a precursor to fuflilling their dreams - the fact that they can't do Shepherd stuff while trapped on Drift Fleet has never bothered him as much. The malevolence bugged him, but it was mostly manageable.

For Mikleo, this is where most of the guilt comes from. He knows it isn't his fault - he can't help not knowing, and he can't help that he wasn't told - but he feels responsible for not doing enough to carry his share of Sorey's burden, and he's sick over the fact that he didn't sense the malevolence well before things went bad. He let himself be blinded by the lies and wanting to believe that things were okay, and it's probably going to take a lot for him to forgive himself for that. In his mind he's just as responsible for what happened as Sorey is.

Fast-forward to the day it happened. He'd already been worried about Sorey. Lack of contact, no responses to any messages sent, and he doesn't know where Sorey is or where to find him. He's starting to freak out a bit. Cue Nightingale's message. The conversation with her had been worrisome and it had also been the trigger for Mikleo figuring out that what he's been feeling is malevolence from Sorey, but more importantly, it was the first of several very similar messages he'd received the same day:

"I don't know you two's exact relationship, but whatever it is, you two love each other, right? You can get through it, if you do it together. Just believe in that."

And then minutes later, from Dezel- "You two are like nothing else. You hear me? If anyone can save him-- it's you."

And then from Zaveid- "He'll listen to you." / "It's him too. You're a pair, and that just means your voice will hit the hardest. It's not about pressure, or picking the right words, yeah? It's you just being there for him."

And this isn't intended to place the blame on the others, but rather to emphasize the fact that everyone expected Mikleo to be able to get through to Sorey. It's what Mikleo does. And it's why Mikleo expected himself to be able to succeed, or at least help. It's been his job, appointed by others or by his own conscience, to look after Sorey. To fail at that is to fail the expectations of everyone who's ever believed in him: Gramps, the other seraphim, Lailah and the others. Himself.

Most importantly, Sorey.

Mikleo's moment of corruption began when Dezel arrived to defend him from Sorey; that's when the conflict began to affect him in earnest. Dezel's arrival isn't when Mikleo gave up, but when he started to realize that he couldn't do this. He couldn't be the one to save Sorey. The belief that everyone had in him was for nothing, his chance had already passed him by, he should have seen this coming months ago, and since he failed, his choices suddenly became very, very limited.

To run, or to fall.

Mikleo's transformation was intentional on multiple levels, some more selfish than others. First, as a water seraph, he's more susceptible to corruption. This is well-documented and he's been made very much aware of this fact. He was stalking the group when Lailah brought it up, and he probably grew up knowing about it, considering his goal of leaving with Sorey wasn't really a secret in Elysia. (He had to get those books somewhere.) He went to Sorey and entered his domain knowing this. The hope had been that if Sorey could let go of his malevolence and purify himself, then he'd be saved as well. Obviously this failed. And when Sorey changed into a hellion, Mikleo was too far gone to do anything but become a hellion alongside him.

Second, to save the others. Malevolence clusters wherever it's drawn and isn't unlimited; this is shown through various manifestations, and through the fact that even places with a lot of it (and a lot that has formed over time) aren't necessarily overwhelming. When a hellion is created, the malevolence affects the area around them, but it doesn't just flow out endlessly. It can grow over time. This was just a theory, but for Mikleo, he'd hoped that taking enough of the malevolence into himself before he changed would funnel the malevolence flowing through the Shepherd's pacts into himself and less into Zaveid- or in Dezel's direction, since he'd been cut loose but had still been stuck in the same domain. The forced armatization had been a last-minute stage two of that. It's Mikleo's one small success of the day and he's proud of that- proud that, even while he fell, he'd helped them save themselves. To him it means he hadn't entirely lost himself, even if a part of it was him selfishly wanting to prevent Sorey from armatizing with Zaveid instead.

Third, and arguably first and foremost in Mikleo's heart, he just flat-out could not leave Sorey. There'd been no guarantee that Sorey would survive this. Lailah warned about the dangers of a fallen Shepherd, and they'd witnessed that power in the Water Trial- even without a connected seraph, the fallen Shepherd they'd had to purify had been immensely powerful. And they hadn't even really saved him- he'd died, too. No one had managed to save him. (That had been due to him being like, hundreds of years old, granted, but even so.) In Drift Fleet they had no other Shepherds, not even a free seraph to enact an oath or someone pure enough for it. The closest they had was Allen, and when Mikleo asked, even he said it was hypothetical at best. And Allen was pretty certain that he couldn't purify a dragon. At that point Mikleo got pretty desperate. Whatever the cost, they had to be able to save Sorey. And he doesn't know whether or not Sorey could be saved if he'd been left completely abandoned- if he'd have felt abandoned were all of the seraphim to run from him.

Truth is, he knows Sorey better than anyone. He knows that Sorey hates being alone. And the second truth is that Mikleo hates it just as much, if not more, and he wasn't ready to live without Sorey. He'd been aware of that potential reality his entire life up to that point, and the Shepherd stuff made it even more likely, but he's never (by choice) let Sorey walk into a fight without being nearby to support and protect him. When Sorey was at his lowest, in his darkest moment? Like hell Mikleo was going to let that be the first time. Even if it meant becoming a monster. Even if it meant probably dying. Even if it meant Sorey would be the one to live without him, instead.

So the moment of truth came, and Mikleo followed his heart instead of his head, something he doesn't usually let himself do. He was punished for it, which carries some pretty uncomfortable connotations with it, and that's something he's not yet tackled (along with a whole bunch of other things he's putting off because NOOOOPE), but while he regrets a lot about what happened, he's really not committed to the idea of regretting that decision in particular. If history repeated itself, the question remains: would he do it again?

His head says no.

His heart says yes.

But his heart also says he wouldn't let it happen again, and he's inclined to listen to that above anything else right now.