[Mikleo returns the touch almost automatically. He's even sitting on the side he usually takes... They've always been like that, fighting side by side in such a way that one can compensate for the other. And it's much the same now, though they're not fighting hellions this time but nightmares of a different sort.]
Maotelus...
[The name just kind of spills out. Mikleo can't remember saying it out loud before. Maybe Sorey's recitation of that memory brought it back. He remembers the rest of the situation then, however... that Sorey had stayed behind to sacrifice himself, and purify the dragon-seraph as well as the continent.
His human life would almost certainly come to an end like that. No wonder Sorey was suddenly very, very worried about what he'd seen; he knew that he was going to sleep and he probably wouldn't wake up.]
... That's right.
[He reaches out to place both cool, healing palms atop Sorey's right hand that holds the pen.]
We faced an impossible situation. You thought about what you could do, and what you'd seen and experienced. There were two questions left to us by the past: how to keep Maotelus from raging, and how to restore Glenwood after all the Lord of Calamity had done to destroy it...
There was only ever one answer. And that was you.
[He squeezes a little.]
It got better, you know. The world healed, and there were many more Shepherds after Rose. I even helped them at times... though I can't remember anything specifically. But I felt you in the world around us, always. I felt your blessing, little by little, and I knew you would return to me one day.
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Maotelus...
[The name just kind of spills out. Mikleo can't remember saying it out loud before. Maybe Sorey's recitation of that memory brought it back. He remembers the rest of the situation then, however... that Sorey had stayed behind to sacrifice himself, and purify the dragon-seraph as well as the continent.
His human life would almost certainly come to an end like that. No wonder Sorey was suddenly very, very worried about what he'd seen; he knew that he was going to sleep and he probably wouldn't wake up.]
... That's right.
[He reaches out to place both cool, healing palms atop Sorey's right hand that holds the pen.]
We faced an impossible situation. You thought about what you could do, and what you'd seen and experienced. There were two questions left to us by the past: how to keep Maotelus from raging, and how to restore Glenwood after all the Lord of Calamity had done to destroy it...
There was only ever one answer. And that was you.
[He squeezes a little.]
It got better, you know. The world healed, and there were many more Shepherds after Rose. I even helped them at times... though I can't remember anything specifically. But I felt you in the world around us, always. I felt your blessing, little by little, and I knew you would return to me one day.