wandering water

“I did,” Sorey answers, throwing the rest of it to the ground before dusting off his hands. They’re probably gonna run out of it in two weeks or so, though, so they’d better get some soon after New Years. Though then again, he did see clovers and stuff, and there’s no real shortage of worms around, if Sorey’s childhood is any indication. They’ll be fine. “Do you want to make the cornflakes now?”

His bike—blue and pretty new, just two years old—is leaning against the wall, and the big bag of cornmeal is tied on the back seat. It’s a tradition, here, to make snacks and just eat as they light a bonfire in the middle of the village, chairs circling it. And well, snacks for an entire village is a lot of snacks, and it’s not rare for them to get ready two weeks prior. With now being a week before the end of the year, they’re cutting it just a bit close, but well. He and Mom work best when chased down with a broom called deadline. Aunt Muse and Uncle Michael have been busy making snowfall cookies these past few days, on the other hand. They’re really the best at it—so soft it seems to melt, with the powdered sugar coating them tasting icy and—

“Sorey! Come on, stop daydreaming about Mikleo. Or cookies. Whichever it is you’re daydreaming about.”

“’m not daydreaming!” Sorey calls back as he hefts the sack over his shoulders, sulking at the ducks passing by. Then, in a murmur, “you’re daydreaming. Probably. Maybe.”

Contrary to popular belief, Sorey grumbles mentally as he makes his way to the kitchen, he does thinks about stuffs, sometimes. Sure, he acts a bit—well, a lot—spacey and jump topics and stop and stares at the ground way too often too fast, but he’s not just dreaming.

Well, at least Mom doesn’t get too on his case about it. His teachers do, though. His answers aren’t always textbook answers, and while his old teacher appreciated his answers on their language arts class, the ones this year are really prickly about what he says on answers sheets, and—

“Sorey, cornflakes!”

“All right, Mom!”

Right, so, past few days—mostly goats, cornflakes, cornflakes, their garden, Lawrence with twenty bottles of soda pop. Food was communal whenever these type of festivities happen, partially—he and Mom end up at Mikleo’s, where they fried up tofu after dinner, dipping it in some soy sauce with chopped up garlic and onions in between batches of snacks.  Sorey knew that Uncle Michael had a thing for coffee, but he wasn’t sure that it was normal or a good idea to drink it at 11 pm. He looks kind of like he’s ready to bike his way to Camlann at that very moment, which isn’t really a good idea considering that a considerable amount of streets there tend to be chained up for the night, thanks to some old wariness for the military. They were gone when Sorey was two or three, but apparently despite the pretty short duration, its effects were long lasting.

Anyway, Sorey’s been eating the misshapen leftovers of the cookies. Ever since he was seven, Uncle Michael was banned from succumbing to his wide-eyed begging to make more misshapen cookies so Sorey can eat them without waiting for the New Year’s Eve. Mom can be cruel sometimes.

“Stop mooching off the cookies,” Mikleo chides as he elbows Sorey’s side, barely making contact from how his hands are holding on to big plastic containers filled with the cookies. Sorey’s just escorting him. Him and his cookies. The cornflakes are already at their places, so he’s just filling his time being nice. “I think you ate like half a kilo of the stuff already. Don’t you get bored of it or something?”

“The likelihood of that is about as high as me getting bored of ruins. I dunno, Mikleo.”

Mason is by the wooden pyramid, yelling and waving at Ed as they get the bonfire ready. It’s seven, eight o’clock now, and everyone’s out of their houses—from hunger, probably, because dinner is postponed until the roasts. Not on the bonfire, of course, but it usually starts with it, if only because that’s when Ed hauls the coals from the storage. He can already smell the birds and chickens and corns, in the distance. The smoke tastes like excitement.

Sorey helps Mikleo place the containers on the coffee tables dragged out, nestled between bowls of cornflakes and berries and soda, cubed papayas and hot ginger milk tea. Behind them the fire crackles to life. Mom is bent over as she talks to Medea, who’s starting to roast the chickens, while Aunt Muse is talking to Gramps, a plate of the cookies extended towards him. Eyes darting, his mind catalogues people, noises, lights, probing each sensation with the curiosity of a bird before hopping back, hopping on, and suddenly, it all feels overwhelming and not enough.

“Sorey?”

There’s so much in this one moment, and it makes him think about the days before—they’re equally rich, aren’t they? But he can’t remember them all. But at least by staying in this year he’s still somehow attached to them, tethered by a thread, a common ground—

“I’m going to get some soda,” Sorey says instead, moving back home for a cup. “Want some?”

Mikleo raises an eyebrow. “I think I’ll get the tea instead, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.”

Melody and Cynthia and Kyme wave and nod at him as he passes by, and Sorey grins in return. It’s unlikely that it was even visible, though, he muses, smile fading with each step—they don’t have street lamps, and the only lights are from the open doors. There’s tons of noise, cluttered like his house, but it’s the spaces in between the sounds that feel excruciatingly empty. He wants to cram everything into them, things that overflowed from the tight fits, like that concept of osmosis he learned this semester. Even it out, maybe. To divide them into memorable chunks.

He sort of needs to go back to the crowds, somehow. He’s sort of scared.

As he stumbles home his eyes catches Uncle’s silhouette, sitting hunched on the front steps of his home, holding onto a cup by its rim. He’s staring at the festivities, faint lights showing his tiny smile.  Sorey makes a beeline for him.

Uncle raises his glass. Fizzes—soda. “Hey. Waiting for dinner?”

Huh? Oh—the other half of the roasting team, the ones with the birds, are ten meters away. It’s Natalie and Loanna and Shiron, so they’re pretty quiet; Sorey almost didn’t realize they’re there, with how their hunched forms covered the fire’s glow. “Not really,” Sorey says. “Just kind of. Uh.”

Uncle pats the step beside him. “Sit down.”

From here, they’ve got a sort of good view of the sky down to Camlann—the town itself isn’t visible, but Sorey’s seen enough of this scenery to guess where’s what, and every year they always look there, because it’s where all the fireworks are. They don’t do fireworks, here—scares off the livestock. They have sparklers, though, for after dinner. Sparklers remind Sorey of what he’s going to lose, after the fizzling sparks disappear: an after image, too vague to be a concrete leftover, too long to disappear without a pang. It feels like crushing a can. Kinda like the realization that fireworks are gorgeous and exciting and awe-inspiring, but those five seconds are all they have, and afterwards nothing can ever really be like it again.

“Have you ever been scared of New Years, Uncle?”

“Hmm?” Uncle takes a sip of his drink, unblinking eyes on the sky. “New Years? Why?”

“Mm, nothing. I just…”

Like this world is something he loves, and he loves all of it? What makes it it is all the experiences and memories and losing it feels like losing a crucial part of who he is, because Sorey likes to gather all the tiny moments and sort them, tagging them to be reviewed later. Because all of it—the sounds, the tastes, the feelings, the sights—shape him to who he is now, and Sorey likes to know his roots. Because he wants to remember what it is about everything that makes him fall in love with the universe.

“I dunno,” he mutters. “I want to see the New Year, but I also don’t want to leave this behind.”

“Ah,” Uncle says. “That.”

“Yeah.”

Above, the leaves rustle with bats and winds. Some yelp and yells follow, filled with panic about the fires, but they all glide over his skin and just raise goosebumps.

“Why does it scare you, Sorey?”

“Well,” Sorey starts, fiddling with his sleeves—“Like, I mean, everything I am is sort of, uh, an aggregation of all I was and how I react to it? And. All my thoughts during all these years. The decisions. It’s kind of scary to think that I’ll forget them.”

It’s not something people think he has, all things considered. They think he likes living in the possibilities. And he does! It’s just that, well, the past were also possibilities—it’s just that they were possibilities that he chose, subconsciously or not, and that makes them as valuable, too. He likes to understand himself. He likes to know why he’s doing the things he does right now.

“Oh, you mean that,” Uncle says. “There’s no real way to keep all that, that’s true. The brain only has a limited capacity for information—most of what we experience is lost. But honestly, I think… It doesn’t only have to be your brain that remembers.”

Sorey blinks. “Huh?”

Uncle turns his head, staring at him. “Most of your experiences are shared, aren’t they? It’s not just you who remembers it. And your thoughts… You can always write it down—share it with the paper. We’re not put in this world solely to rely on our own capabilities; we all have lived through so many things because we have resourcefulness, people to shoulder half the work. There’s so much we can do, but by distributing, sharing what we have to carry, what we do ends up being what’s meaningful to us.” He takes a sip. The distant stare towards the night sky makes Sorey turn, too, to see what he’s looking at, and his eyes find the pale, blinking stars. “It took me a while to realize that, too. But anyhoo, you should probably get back.”

“What about you?”

Uncle raises his cup, smile lopsided. “I’ll join you all later. Food smells good right now.”

It’s far later at night. The green glow of his watch is kinda hard to see with all the red and yellows but it’s nearing midnight, now, and everyone’s buzzed up on fizzy soda and lots of sugar, laughing as an occasional firework fires off from Camlann. Sorey’s got one leg up on Mikleo’s chair, and Mikleo’s leg is bent and resting up on his knee. They’re kinda sleepy but one container of cornflakes is sitting precariously on Mikleo’s leg, tilted and leaning against his leg, and they’ve stolen a bottle of the lemon soda for themselves, sharing a cup as they munch. The packs of sparklers rest against their plastic chairs, waiting for midnight.

“C’mon boys,” Mom says suddenly, standing up. “It’s a quarter to midnight. If you want to watch the lightworks, uppity up.”

Sorey jostles, then Mikleo jumps, and they almost spilled everything. Mom swipes the cornflakes, though, and Mikleo just barely saves the cup, so Sorey grabs the sprinklers and hops to the balls of his feet, sleepily exhilarated. The muted sounds of celebrations echo down the mountains—he can’t see the lights, but he can feel it bubble up inside. It would be so, so great to be able to bike down to Camlann as the fireworks fly, to feel the harsh cold air against his hair as his ears ring, but that’s too lonely, and Uncle’s right. This is a moment to be shared, because it’s a precious one he wants to remember.

Mikleo sends him a glare. “Calm down, will you? We almost spilled the soda.”

“Fireworks!”

In the end, it’s pretty much everyone who joins them. Even Gramps and Uncle have gotten up, staying in the far back—Ed and Cynthia and Melody have sparklers of their own, too, while Mason holds the match. Mom taps her foot as she counts out the minutes. Five minutes, three—the light is on, and everything bursts into pale gold.

Sorey looks up, grinning. Mikleo is grinning back, and they wave their sparklers.

“Midnight,” Aunt Muse says, voice light with bated breath.

In the distance, above their ephemeral string of lights, flowers rain. Laughter is echoed by the muted bangs, cloaked and masked and balled up, but it feels free here, in this clearing, so it flies free. They’re at the edge of Elysia—beyond them is the road down to Camlann, the endless steps of fields that line it, the mountains. Beyond them is the world.

Michael drops to his knees as she hugs him, and he hugs her back, forehead against her stomach. “Yeah. Sorry, I walked.”

Walked is a very innocent way to put it, but he supposes that that is the point. Lailah leaves him and manifests behind him and Muse gasps, letting her grip on his hair go.

“Oh! A lady seraph! Hello, I’m Muse. Were you the one who got Micha home? Thank you very much.”

She takes a step back and brushes her skirt clean, and Lailah giggles. “Such a polite young lady! My name is Lailah, and I’m a fire seraph.”

“Thank you then, Lailah.” Muse does a bit of a bow with one hand gripping her skirt, and huh, where did she learn that? Then she takes a look at him with raised eyebrows and pokes his shoulder with the lemongrass. “Were you lost, Micha? I told you going that far will do that. Good thing Lailah was there, you know, because you probably won’t go tell someone that you’re lost and then you’ll just grow old in Ladylake and be a grilled fish merchant, I bet.”

Michael can’t help but laugh—it sounds a bit helpless, but he can’t help it. “Yeah, me too. I wouldn’t want to be a grilled fish merchant.”

He no longer wants to be the Shepherd now either, but he will see this through anyway—Lailah didn’t save him from the aqueduct dungeon for nothing, after all. They’ve been talking about what to do after he returns to Celliwig, like how they’re going to talk to Valory and Eidhan and eventually Muse. Michael had taken to mulling over the former the entire trip; he’s trying not to think about how he’s going to explain to Muse that he’s going to do something not unlike what Dad did before he died.

He hopes she won’t hate him.

“Michael, good Maotelus, you’re alive, oh seraph—” and Michael looks up to see Eidhan dropping to his knees in front of him, looking ready to cry. “I asked the guards if they’ve seen you, and most of them said they didn’t. There were several who said that you already left with some merchant cart and I thought you’d be back here but—three weeks, Michael. Three weeks. What would your father say, good seraph.”

Michael looks up to Lailah and she shakes her head, an unspoken we’ll talk about it later when Muse isn’t here, and he turns back to Eidhan. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t end up on a merchant cart, but I didn’t know if I could find you either, so I went back after it was clear that I wasn’t going to be able to find you in the crowds. They went on for days…”

“And so you walked,” Muse says, amused. “You’re stupid sometimes, Micha.”

“Muse!” Eidhan says, tapping her cheek. “Don’t call your brother stupid.”

“Whatever,” Michael grumbles, letting go of his hug and getting back to his feet. His knees throb and his limbs suddenly surge with fire as he tries, but Eidhan pulls him up and keeps him steady, and it takes a minute but he can stand again alone, now, though his entire body is shaking. Now that he’s back, he feels like he can sleep another five days—he’s got more bruises than he does whenever Muse gets nightmares, because they share a bed and she’s a restless sleeper and she kicks his back a lot. Lailah’s hand is on his back, next to Eidhan’s, and together they push him forward back home, and Michael can only stumble forward like a newborn calf, Muse leading the way with that lemongrass of hers.  

She’s kinda right, honestly. He’s stupid. That’s how he got into this mess.

But sometimes, he can kind of hope that things will turn out fine.

They get back, and Valory feeds him, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to throw up if he’s told to finish his plate, no matter how starving he is. Lailah nestles inside him during the meal, because Valory and Eidhan are there and asking questions and he’s skirting around each of them, because Muse sometimes barges in and out and comes back with things related to her errands. He can’t finish more than the potatoes and bits of chicken—his stomach is too used to the sparse meals during their month on the road, though he eats as much as he physically could. He can feel his arms going limp, after it all. There’s still three fourth of the meat when he’s done.

“What happened, Michael?” Valory asks at last, tapping her ladle on the rim of the metal pot she’s cooking roots for tomorrow’s meals, probably. “You can’t… do that and not tell us.”

He fiddles with his fingers, staring at them and the new stains on the tablecloth and the scratches on the wood. They’ve long been scabbed and lined with dirt underneath his nails, but fighting and things added new marks, pinkish red even after all this time. There was a surprising amount of hellions even out of the way of the main path—no wonder seraphim feel so threatened. “I… can we talk about it when Muse is already asleep?”

They’re both frowning, he can tell. He doesn’t even have to look up to know.

“Michael, what happened?”

Michael pushes the slice of chicken around, saying nothing. “I went to the Sanctuary. There was this… seraph, and I talked to her.”

Eidhan lets out a long sigh. “Michael, you’ve had this conversation before.”

There’s a warm tingle and with a gentle glow Lailah leaves him, manifesting right beside his chair. Her hands are in front of her, all professional and businesslike, but it’s hard to see her expression from down here. Michael hates to admit it, but he’s not exactly tall.

“I know,” he murmurs. “I know.”

His late father told him not to take his gifts for granted, but also not to be too… free with it. There were, are, very few seraphim around, and not all of the ones he met in his father’s trade travels were nice, but some were, and well, they looked lonely, usually. Or angry. In any case, regardless, Father wanted him to be careful about where he was when talking to the seraphim—namely, anywhere outside the public eye is fine. But well, the Sanctuary wasn’t getting emptier considering the festival, and the Lady of the Lake looked ready to be swallowed by malevolence, and…

“We don’t do this because we don’t like you, Michael,” Valory says. “We do this because we care. Though now I guess there’s nothing much to do about it by now.”

“I’m the Shepherd now,” he blurts out. “Lailah she’s—she’s my Prime Lord. She saved me, but I had to. I had to make a Shepherd pact. But it’s okay. I just. I’m the Shepherd, and I.”

Have to leave Celliwig, probably. After there being no Shepherd in so long, or so said Lailah, the world is in desperate need for one; Michael can guess, he supposes, from all those stories they’ve had about what happens at that ruined temple at Aifread’s Hunting Grounds. He’s never been there himself, but he doesn’t know if he wants to. Now he probably has to, though. Sounds like a place with a lot of malevolence.

“Michael,” Eidhan sighs. “Don’t be stupid. You’re young—whatever the Shepherd does, you’re too young to do it. And that means you probably will have to go around the world, leave your home—what would Muse say?”

Eyes widening, he turns to Eidhan. “I—but, but. I. I…”

It was hard enough to even want to leave home like this, and then… Must he really—must they really… Yes, what would Muse say? But at the same time, he’d promised. This isn’t a small promise, and he knows objectively that it’s what he should do, maybe, sort of, but to hear this, to know that in the eyes of others he shouldn’t, it’s. He’s confused. He doesn’t know what to take, in this case, because Lailah’s here too and she’s hearing all this, listening to all of this, and.

“They care for you,” Lailah says, hours later, when he’s back in his room and the sun is setting outside, all yellow and orange through the dingy window pane. He’s sitting on the bed—he wonders if Muse has been sleeping alone these past three weeks. Or maybe not. With a free bed, the others might’ve wanted that extra free space and sleep here instead of the equally crowded other bedroom—at least Muse is smaller than Ilesa, who’s youngest and eleven and lanky. He wonders if they don’t mind her kicks. Sometimes she gets bad dreams, though she rarely remembers it and often shrugs it off moments later, and whenever that happens she’s restless. Whenever he feels particularly patient at midnight after being woken up with a sharp kick to the thigh, he doesn’t restrain her with a hug.

“I know,” Michael sighs. “I just… I don’t know, Lailah. It’s probably most right to go regardless, I guess.”

“Family is important, Michael.” Lailah takes a seat beside him, not minding the fact that she has to bend her knees quite a bit because the bed is low and the room is too small for her extended legs. “I’m not angry or anything. What’s important is that outside of pressures like these, what do you think you should do?”

“I don’t know.”

Why must decisions be this hard? If he leaves, then who’ll be there for Muse? They have Valory and Eidhan and Ilesa and Minea and Dales, but… It’s different, isn’t it? To him it had always been different, in a way—then again, he actually travelled with Father, back when he was. Alive. Muse—Muse grew up with them, he supposes. In her infant years. They’re probably just as family as he is.

“I don’t know…”

“Micha?” As the door creaks open Muse’s head pokes in, and she perks up at seeing him. “Oh, there you are. You really must be tired, huh?”

And with that she enters and closes the door, practically skipping to the bed before taking up the spaces unoccupied—not much, since he’s sitting and Lailah’s sitting and this bed barely fits him and Muse, probably won’t at all once they get older—and leaning against him. Michael leans back against her, too, just a bit; he missed her, and at least she misses him, too. Her arms are around his waist, tight. Lailah politely says nothing as he strokes Muse’s hair, smoothing out the tangles that formed. Her hair is pretty short, but sometimes, when they wake up early enough, she’d make him braid it; it doesn’t get past two or three plaits, but it keeps her hair neat, and she looks a bit less Musetta and more Muse that way.

“Kinda am, yeah,” he says. “Glad to be back again, though. W’re you, Musetta?”

Muse buries her face against the back of his shirt, rubbing her cheek against the fabric. “…Thanks, Lailah.”