Mikleo had made an oath shortly after he'd lost Sorey. That he wouldn't cut his hair until he was reunited. It was an utterly pointless act as so many a seraphs oaths were, but it was the promise that mattered more than the deed. And it seemed appropriate to Mikleo. He had always cut Soreys hair, and on a few occasions he had insisted on returning the favour, but alas, Sorey cut hair with vigour rather than care. But since he had taken the oath his hair had barely grown at all, in twenty years it had only grown enough to be tied in a knot at the base of his neck, possibly because he was so aware of it. It was a symbol of time, caught in a paradox of his own making. His perception of time was both that every year felt longer than it was, but that barely any time had passed at all. His hair responded by simply not growing at all apart from a time every few years where he'd wake up and look in a mirror and see that his hair had definitely grown about a half inch overnight.
He'd gotten taller as well. Growing up, Sorey had always been his frame of reference, the elders had little knowledge on how a baby Seraphim aged, because baby seraphim so rarely existed. They didn't know whether he grew up at the same rate as a human because that's how it supposed to work, or if it was because he was growing up alongside Sorey. He had started to suspect that part of the reason Sorey was taller than him was because at a young age he had got it stuck in his head that Sorey was the taller one, that that was just a fact of life, and since a seraphs appearance was so intrinsically tied to their self-perception, it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. Mikleo's growth had snuck up on him, taking him by surprise when he could feel the breeze around his ankles in the same trousers he always wore. Without his frame of reference by his side he was free to grow as he wished. Maybe he was always meant to be taller.
Time was never more apparent to Mikleo than when he met with his human friends.
Alisha had invited him to stay with him and Sergei and their two kids. Ten years after they had met they had married. When Sergei first met Alisha in her late teens, as an honourable knight, he had no inappropriate thoughts about the girl, but as she grew older she became aware of what she wanted and pursued it relentlessly. They had named their first born son Sorey, in honour of his Sorey. He was moved, but couldn't tell them how much it broke his heart. But whenever he looked at this blond haired Sorey he couldn't help but be reminded of the original. The 10 year old had taken after his parents in many ways, they were both dutiful, caring, idealistic people, much like Sorey. The ways that they were different, their patience, their forethought, their restraint hadn't passed to their children, or at least wasn't apparent at this young age.
When they were expecting their second, they thought they might name it Michael if it was a boy, after the last shepherd before Sorey, but Alisha could see Mikleo's unhappiness with this suggestion. No one had told Alisha the whole story about Shepherd Michael. The others had all thought it was Mikleo's story to tell. So he had told her, told her how Michael was his uncle, how in a fit of madness he had sacrificed his baby nephew to enact a powerful seraphic arte, how he had died as a human and was reborn a seraph, about his mother. The baby was a girl and she had been named Muse.
He liked watching the two children in the courtyard, receiving tutelage in sword fighting from their father and after he left, going on crazy imaginary adventures around Ladylake, swinging their wooden swords about wildly and sometimes sparring.
Alisha and Sergei wanted their seraphim friends around their children as much as possible, they wanted to bring them up with as much resonance as possible. They wouldn't say, but they secretly held hopes that they might become shepherds. The children did have a lot of resonance. They couldn't always see him but they could always hear him.
He called little Sorey 'scruff', the kid just thought it was an affectionate nickname, but his parents could tell it was because Mikleo couldn't stand the memory of the way Soreys name tasted in his mouth.
