Every few months Shadow draws something and then it's like a full ref or a finished artwork followed by radio silence for the next half a year xD
And, well, would you look at that! It's everyone's favourite idiot, Sorey from my fic Winterkind (if you haven't read it please don't, it's horrible xD)
And then we have I_wish_someone_would_look_at_me_the_way_Sorey_looks_at_ruins.png Like, really, look at him!
Idk why I thought doing a full damn artwork was a good idea, but here we go
Click or open them in a new tab for better quality, the canvases are rather big and I'm sure Tumblr will hate that. (but don't scroll in on the floor on that last one, you can literally see where I lost motivation to shade and stuff...)
I'm sorry I know I said Winterkind will update in October but I don't think it will 😅 so have a few drawings for now
In November it will be back to your regularly scheduled Winterkind, promise!
I don't know if you still accept drabble prompts or not, but...how about Sorey trying to keep it together but finally breaking down after his awakening, taking in Gramps' death and everything else that overloaded him during his time as Shepherd, and Mikleo comforting him the best he can?
Krissey’s Notes: ohhhhh my gosh okay I’m sorry this took so long. When I first got this prompt, the idea was so good, that I knew I wanted to take my time with it.
but this prompt also gave me the opportunity to slip in a lot of my personal headcanons about Sorey’s reaction to waking up again, particularly in a sudden new world and all that?? so really this prompt was perfect and thank you so much for giving it
WITHOUT MUCH FURTHER A DO HERE ComES THE ANGST!!
The tears don’t come until the night, when the sun passesand the world falls quiet, settling down its weary self for slumber.
Sorey can hear nothing else but the deep breathing of Mikleoat his back with the tranquility of Elysia just outside their hut door. It isa sound he has always, always known, which alone brings a strange comfort sojuxtaposed from the rest of the new world around him.
Listening, straining his ear for every inhale and exhale ofhis bedmate, he rolls onto his back. His hands fold over hisstomach. But then, eventually, his fingers find a way to his chest.
That’s where it usually begins, too. No matter how hard hepresses, he can never find a pulse.
It is usually one thing such as that, that sets off thetears. And whatever begins it, other regrets and sorrows soon follow,compounded by the heavy grief inside him. It surprises Sorey every time that he could feelso, so sad.
He wonders sometimes if this is why humans who becomeseraphim usually and mercifully don’t retain their memories.
Sometimes Sorey gets really selfishly sad about missing outon certain parts of being human that he had, quite honestly, been lookingforward to. There is a certain joy to living and growing in the way he knewthat he knows he will miss, and that he’s sorry to never get toexperience.
Sometimes Sorey thinks of Gramps, and cries anew withmemories and sorrow that he was gone. It has been years since his passing—too many to count. But what would hit him the most would be the reminder that even though Zenrus had been a father to him, he still missed thefuneral rites the seraphim of Elysia performed for him. He had slept throughthe entire ceremony, whenever they would have decided to do it. He never got tosay his proper goodbyes.
Sometimes Sorey turns over further to touch the length ofMikleo’s hair, to see if he could measure with his own fingertips just how long it had been since he saw him—justhow long it was that he had slept—and just how much time he had missed out on. Sometimes, that hurt the most: to see with real manifest evidence how muchof his other half’s life he had slept through.
And sometimes, when the grief is heaviest, he wonders howmany times Mikleo cried while he was asleep, with pain equally so heavy andawful, that Sorey will likely never know about. How many times, while he wasasleep, was Mikleo afraid? How many times did Mikleo feel lonely?
Mikleo had to grieve Gramps’ passing alone, Sorey knew.
Sometimes, that regret alone made him sob until he couldn’tbreathe, fingers pressed over his eyes and clutching to his temple. Face hiddenin the night.
There were many times Sorey found himself sobbing silentapologies, gasping them into the air, fingers shaking, so utterly sorry for abandoning the light of his life when Mikleo had already losteverything else only moments beforethat final fight. Sometimes, Sorey felt like he had made the most horrible andselfish mistake to sleep the years away instead of find another way to achievetheir dream—together.
The grief came regularly each night in Elysia as Sorey foundit harder and harder to sleep with a body that no longer required rest. Themore hours he spent staring into the darkness with his thoughts as his onlycompany, tormented by memories of a five-hundred-years-ago yesterday that therest of the world had long forgotten about—that Mikleo might have forgotten about—he felt out of place. He felt astranger to his own home, to his own skin.
But above all, he knows he has made the gravest error ofall: he abandoned the one person mostimportant to him, most likely when Mikleo needed him most.
“Sorey?”
Sorey turns from where he stands at the cliff’s edge, aprecipice along the southern skirts of Elysia that he remembers fondly fromtheir journey together. His loose button-up flutters in the wind as he seesMikleo walking towards him. The water seraph’s long hair is pulled back in aponytail. When the wind lifts it up, it frames his pale, moonglow face likewings, and Sorey thinks how pure of heart Mikleo must be, that he managed tosurvive all he did and still stand before him wholly untainted.
Even after five hundred years.
Sorey turns back around to view the world beneath. In thebreak of dawn, the world is quiet and crisp. The sun has only just begun tocreep over the horizon, and the sky yields to its burning hues of red and gold.
“...what are you doing out here?” Mikleo says slowly as hereaches his side.
Sorey can feel the burn of his eyes on his profile, and hedoesn’t know what to say. He blinks once and bows his head. His eyes fall uponthe way his fingers clutch at the cuffs of his blue sleeves.
Mikleo continues after a long pause. “Sorey?” And when hestill doesn’t answer, the water seraph drops his voice. Maybe he knows. “Areyou…okay?”
Sorey shakes his head.
Mikleo exhales; it’s a careful breath, but in part relieved.“Bad dream?”
Sorey shakes his head again. But then his face tightens. Hefrowns carefully, and considers whether or not his answer is true.
Mikleo waits, as patiently as ever.
And it makes Sorey suck in a sharp breath.
Like the sun shining its rays down on their sorry worldbelow, even in the world above the world, Sorey realizes that he’s been makingMikleo wait for more time than they had ever even spent together. And all atonce, he thinks how selfish he must be for doing that to him, for turningaround and when the waiting period was over, expecting Mikleo to just pick himback up and accept him back into his life like nothing had happened. Likeall those years didn’t make a difference; like things didn’t change after allthat time. Feelings didn’t change; concerns didn’t change.
Like a waterfall, follows the thought: no more.
“I can’t believe you didn’t just—forget about me,” is the first thing he can think of to say andit’s nonsensical. Mikleo seems as surprised as him that it came from his ownmouth but now that it’s there, from it, spouts so much more.
“Y’know, I didn’t dream while I slept,” Sorey says and heshakes his head. “I closed my eyes and I opened them and then suddenly, the worldwas different.” He looks to Mikleo,and his eyes take in how much older helooks, how much taller he is. Thelength of his hair. Sorey looks away, back out over the edge. He shakes hishead, and the wind picks up his bangs.
He hates the way his breathing starts to get short.
Mikleo’s eyes go wide, and Sorey can’t conceive why.“Sorey…is…that what’s bothering you?”
Sorey just shakes his head, and chokes on his next words.“No!” he first says, and it’s stronger than he meant it to be. He can feel hisown throat go hoarse at the single word. He clenches his hands into fists. Heshakes his head again. “Yes? I—I don’t know. I just—I didn’t think it would belike this. I really didn’t.”
Mikleo stares at him. There’s a beat before he asks, just asquiet as he has been, “Didn’t think…‘it’ would be like what?”
“I didn’t think…” Sorey pauses. It’s hard to get the wordsout. But he says them anyway; Mikleo deserves closure and deserves release fromthe obligation he’s subconsciously held him to—all in the same breath. “…I didn’tthink I’d wake up to a world where I didn’t fitanymore. Y’know?”
The words go out through a tight, strangled throat. Sorey standsthere a moment more as the tension in his face gets harder and harder and hecan’t hold the tears back. He raises his arm to cover his mouth and the firstfragile ones break free.
When he next speaks, his voice is muffled, “I can’t sleepanymore.” He shakes his head, swallows and lets his arm fall to his side. Theworld starts to become hard to see. The tears distort his vision. “I know I don’thave to anymore, but…even if I could.I think I wouldn’t. I think I’m afraid to. I think if I sleep, I won’t wake upagain. Or—when I do wake up—I’ll wake up and the world’s different again—” –and you’redifferent again— “—and I’m afraid this time there won’t be anything I recognize.”
This time there willbe no one there in that uncertain future who still loves me.
Mikleo doesn’t say a word, but he listens. He stands thereon the precipice with Sorey, his expression hard to read.
“I lost…everything, Mikleo—evenwho I am—and I didn’t think thatwould happen.” He had thought so few things when he first accepted theresponsibility of being Maotelus’ vessel.
He should have thought more.
Sorey’s hands turns into a first and he sniffs. The tearscome faster now, and his voice turns shaky. “I’m not human anymore. I’m not the Shepherdanymore. I don’t know what I’m here foranymore. I don’t know why Maotelus brought me back as a seraph. I don’t knowwhy he let me keep my memories. I don’t—” –and perhaps this was the part he wasmost afraid of— “—I don’t even know if I’m still your best friend anymore, or if you still love me, because it’s been half of a millennia—and I don’t know what to d-do if—if I’m not—”
Mikleo’s hand touches his arm, and turns Sorey around toface him. “What do you mean you don’tknow if I still love you?” he asks, like it’s obvious.
And it flows out of Sorey; he could stop the tide if hetried. “I wasn’t there, Mikleo…! Forfive hundred years I slept, and I left you aloneright after Gramps died!”
He lets that sit in a hanging, awful silence, before it alltumbles forth, with a sudden fire and ringing pain that wasn’t there before.“Right after your mother died again—andthen me—” It’s a hard sob that breaks free. “I don’t know how you don’t hate me. I wonder if you do. I wonderwhy you don’t. I tossed the responsibility of the world on your shoulders when I decided to sleep, and I left you alone for—for forever, and I’m sorry! Iwasn’t there for you! I missed so much of your life—I missed countless birthdays—Imissed Rose and Alisha dying—I missed—!”
His throat gets too tight to talk, and he barely gets out,“I missed everything! I’m so sorry!”before he shakes too hard he can’t say another word.
Sorey sobs.
It’s unlike any other cry he can remember in his human life.It feels supremely inhuman, the wayhe feels like he’s crying from the depths of his soul and on out. He can’tremember crying this hard before, at a loss so deep and so grave and so sweeping.
But Mikleo doesn’t remove his hand from Sorey’s arm.
Instead, he pulls him closer. He wraps his arms aroundSorey.
And for the first time since waking up in this new andunfamiliar world, Sorey feels something like home.
“…I wasn’t alone, you know,” Mikleo whispers to him.
And Sorey clings to Mikleo, his arms wrapped tight aroundhis one anchor. He can’t form the words to respond back, but Mikleo continueson anyway, as if not expecting him to.
“When Gramps died? After the final fight?” He shakes hishead and Sorey can feel the soft movement of his chin against his shoulder. “Youdon’t have to feel like you abandoned me, because you didn’t, Sorey. Because of you and because of our journey together,I had friends who helped me afterwards to grieve him….and to grieve you. Rose, Alisha, Lailah, Zaveid—even Edna.”There’s a small rumble of a laugh in Mikleo’s chest. It’s so familiar, Soreyfeels more tears bubble to the surface. “They were there for me. And I wouldn’thave had them if it weren’t for you.”
Sorey shakes his head, but Mikleo doesn’t let him pull away.He tightens his hold, and he said again, “Yes.If you can believe it, I am gratefulfor you, and I don’t resent yourdecision, Sorey.”
He holds on for a moment longer, a beat of silence driftingbetween them, before he admits quietly, “I mean, yes, I was sad to not haveyou. Yes, I missed you.” Missed you so much that words cannot spanthe depths of that ache. “But I would never hold or have held that againstyou. Not in five hundred years. Not even in a million years.”
Sorey can feel Mikleo take his next breath, and he holds onto hear it. To feel it against his own chest. “You going to sleep was the onlyway to achieve what we’ve been dreaming about for all our lives up until thatpoint. And you know, maybe the reason you didn’t dream in all that time andmaybe the reason it’s so hard to sleep right now, Sorey, isn’t because you’reafraid to wake up. Maybe it’s because now, you have nothing to dream for.”
Mikleo loosens his hold and pulls back. Sorey looks up,lifting his head and tear-stained cheeks.
And Mikleo’s gentle smile that greets him is like the sun.
“…gosh, there’s so much more I want to tell you,” Mikleoconfesses to him, and he raises his hands from Sorey’s back to his face, tocradle the lines of his jaw with his own palms. His thumbs wipe away Sorey’stears.
Sorey sniffs. He raises a hand to cover one of Mikleo’s own,holding it to his cheek. Hope kindles in his chest at those words, a soft andlight-winged burn. Something to dream for, huh? “…y-yeah…?”
Mikleo’s smile widens. “Yeah,” he breathes back. “After all,it’s…all I’ve been dreaming about forthe past five hundred years. Talking to you again. Sharing space with youagain. Having the other half of me back.”
Sorey sucks in a sharp breath at those words. “…yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Sorey swallows hard. Despite all that Mikleo has said so far, despite all the promise of more that Mikleo wants to share with him too, the Shepherd-turned-seraph finds himself asking, “You—you mean still—”
“—Sorey.” And the single, familiar, chiding call of his namemeans so much more than any other word could. “I never stopped.”
A shuddering, shaky breath. A wet, incredulous laugh.
Sorey brings his forehead to meet Mikleo’s own, the risensun warm on their faces and their backs. And ironically, it’s him who feels released. It’s Sorey whofeels finally free of guilt and worry and shame.
“Not even in five hundred years?” he asks, breathless withthe impossibility of it.
But Mikleo always could do the impossible. And he alwaysdid.
