#i shall proceed to continue on my casual existential crisis now

[diatasair]

does anyone even follow me for the sormik anymore, much less fics? hoo knos

the color of the wheat fields (5/?) ( part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4)

There’s something exciting, celebration-worthy, muted, and terrifying about thinking about a year’s end.

Sorey doesn’t really know how to describe it, exactly—every time it approaches he eagerly anticipates it then he thinks about all the things he’ll leave behind and get terrified, but they’re never bad days, those last days. Mostly just very yawn-filled. There are lots of festivities. It’s just that in the lulls of the in-betweens, the darkness between two lights feel deeper than usual.

It’s a stupid fear, honestly. Even he’s not buying it. New Years are great.

“Sorey?” Mom calls from the kitchen. Sorey looks up from the chickens, thumb restlessly fiddling with the fodder meals he’s just gotten. They’re soft but ultimately rather squishy in his palm, which is kind of eugh when he thinks about it too long. “Did you pick up the cornmeal from Camlann yet?”

“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.

Mom kisses his cheek as she grabs his hand with a laugh, making a swish with his sparkler before letting go. Everything feels close together, that second—lights, sounds, warmth—and when he looks up, when he looks up and sees Mikleo and Mom and the rest of his family, the silhouettes of his home, and he sees the after images of the lights, they’re all the color of the wheat fields.