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Mikhail jolted awake with a gasp, adrenaline still surging through his veins. He blinked as his vision adjusted to the dim moonlight filtering through the bedroom window. The pale glow seeped past the frost-covered glass, painting the chamber in muted silver tones. It was quiet here, much too quiet.
His chest felt tight, breath catching in short bursts, skin damp with a cold sweat.
The remnants of the nightmare faded into the background, but they left him with a lingering sense of unease still. He was used to nightmares, but this one had been unusually vivid, leaving him feeling shaken and dazed.
His gaze darted around his still unfamiliar surroundings. Everything was still so strange. So different from what he had grown used to. He missed his room on the Monoceros during moments like these. Eventually, his eyes landed on a figure standing motionless in the doorway.
She was standing so still she could have been a statue, carved and placed there as part of the decor. Only her eyes, wide and glowing bright in the dim moonlight, moved. They moved over his form studying him with so much worry in their gaze. Her gaze softened the moment their eyes locked, but the worry didn’t leave. It never really did.
„Mikhail?“
She walked -no, floated- toward him, drifting like a leaf in the wind, and settled on the edge of the bed. Her cool hand rested lightly on his arm, claws just barely grazing his skin as she traced slow, soothing circles.
His racing pulse slowed beneath her touch, as though her fingers were coaxing it back into rhythm.
He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat, trying to dispel the leftover panic curling tight in his chest. He sat up with a shudder, rubbing a trembling hand over his face. His heart beat too fast, uneven, almost painful in his chest.
Luna's expression softened as she looked at him, her grip on his arm shifting to a reassuring squeeze.
"Nightmare again?"
She asked quietly, her voice gentle as ever. The scene was painfully familiar. She could still feel his panic even from afar, the feelings bleeding into her through their ether link always gave him away.
She already knew the answer. She always did. The question was only an invitation, to speak if he wanted, to stay silent if he needed, to lean on her without asking.
Mikhail nodded, still trying to catch his breath. The dream had felt so vivid, so real, and it had left him feeling unsettled and on edge.
The Ice Blade’s gaze softened further as she gently drew him into her arms. Her body radiated a steady, cool presence that grounded him. He pressed close, clinging to the solidity of her form, trying to anchor himself to her presence and heartbeat, attempting to push away the lingering shadows of the nightmare.
She was cool. Solid. Present. And right now that felt like the only thing keeping him from collapsing entirely.
"The same one?"
She didn't need to specify which nightmare she was referring to. They both knew there was only one that could leave him shaken like this. Only one that left him trapped between past and present, breathless and terrified.
Torna burning.
The experiments.
Amalthus.
The memories never faded, no matter how much time passed.
Mikhail closed his eyes, taking a shuddering breath that hitched painfully. He nodded, jaw clenching as the coil of panic tightened in his gut.
“It’s always the same.”
He whispered hoarsely.
“Every damn time.”
The experiments Amalthus conducted never stopped haunting him. And after… after Amalthus slaughtered the others, after he had taken Patroka‘s and Akhos‘ Cores and Jin perished fighting him it had only gotten worse and so much more intense.
Mikhail closed his eyes tightly once more, taking in another shuddering breath. The nightmare was always the same, a sickening replay of the worst moments of his life.
All the pain, the fear, the loss, all of it played out in a sickening dream, leaving him feeling raw and vulnerable. He hated these nightmares, hated how they made him feel small and broken, and yet he couldn't escape them. No matter what he did, they always came back.
His fingers drifted toward his core crystal again, nails scraping against the blue fan shaped gem. The urge to tear it out, to stop feeling its pulse, to stop remembering rose sharp and desperate. He hated seeing it, hated the reminder etched into his very body.
The trauma of the experiments and the loss of Torna had left too deep a mark on him, and he carried the weight of it all on his shoulders, every day.
“It’s always the same.”
He croaked out quietly.
“The same nightmare… over and over.”
Luna let out a soft sigh, her hand rubbing slow circles into his back, careful and gentle, her cold fingertips leaving a faint tingling trail. She knew how these nightmares plagued him. They had lessened over the years, but once Mythra awakened again, they returned nightly, as relentless as they used to be.
Luna hesitated before speaking again, her voice barely above a whisper.
„Do you wish to talk about it?“
Mikhail tensed slightly under her touch, his fingers curling into the sheets. Talking about it made it real, made the pain and loss tangible. But keeping it locked away inside only made the nightmares worse.
"...Amalthus."
He finally muttered, voice hoarse.
"It's always Amalthus. The experiments... but this time it changed at the end.”
His throat closed as the images flashed in his mind. His breaths quickened, shallow and unsteady. His core crystal throbbed with each ragged inhale.
The images his mind conjured up about the deaths of the others. The rubble he had been buried in after the fight with Indol, after the explosion destroyed the Mersanes with him inside.
Silence settled, heavy and suffocating, Luna’s gaze rested on him with patient, steady warmth while her thumb traced small circles between his shoulder blades.
He hated feeling so weak, so vulnerable, but he couldn't help it. The trauma was too fresh, the pain too raw. And yet…
He hadn’t seen them die.
He hadn’t watched it happen.
Not like Luna had.
Luna had and it felt so ridiculous to express what these nightmares did to him when she had seen their deaths with her own eyes.
A heavy silence settled between them. Luna didn’t push. She didn’t rush him. She never did. Her presence alone was enough, a quiet, steady pillar to cling to while a storm raged inside him.
"It's stupid… I know it is."
He muttered, his voice hoarse.
“I wasn’t even there. I shouldn’t be so shaken about nightmares of something I didn’t see.”
Before he could look away, Luna’s hand slid into his hair, her clawed fingers combing gently through the blonde strands, grounding him. She guided his gaze to hers the way she had a million times before.
“Mikhail grief isn’t a competition.”
She said firmly.
“Not seeing it doesn’t make your pain lesser. You loved them too. You lost them too.”
Her eyes burned with a quiet intensity she rarely showed anymore.
"Listen to me please."
Her gaze softened once more, thumb brushing against his temple as she repeated herself.
“You cannot measure your grief by what you witnessed.”
The Blade Eater’s breath hitched, he hadn't realized until now how badly he'd needed to hear that. His shoulders trembled as he collapsed into her embrace with a choked sob.
Luna held him tighter, her own tears slipping silently into his hair as the first light of dawn painted the towers of Theoscaldia Palace gold outside their window.
And for once he didn't fight it.
He didn't try to shrug it off with a joke.
He didn’t try to deflect it with his usual grin.
The weight of everything -the loss, the fear, the survivor's guilt- crashed over him like a tidal wave. He clung to Luna like she was the only thing keeping him from drowning, his fingers twisting into the fabric of her nightgown as loud sobs wracked his body.
Luna didn't say anything more. She didn't need to. She just held him, one hand cradling the back of his head while the other rubbed slow, steady circles between his shoulders. The dawn light crept further, into the room, casting long shadows across the floor, but neither of them moved.
Eventually the storm inside him quieted, leaving him drained and aching but strangely lighter than before.
His breathing slowed, the sharp hiccups fading into soft, tired exhales. He rested his head against Luna’s chest, feeling the steady beat of her heart beneath his ear.
Najm’s heart.
Recalling that Luna carried Najm’s heart inside her made something fragile inside him break painfully.
The memory hit hard. Najm. Milton. He never got enough time with them. The ache in his very soul deepened, sharp and unyielding.
These memories only made his heart ache more. Remembering Milton’s and Najm’s deaths hurt in a way he couldn’t explain.
He‘d lost his closest friends and Luna… Luna had lost her Driver, no she had lost her Daughter.
Luna’s fingers threaded through his hair again, claws lightly scratching his scalp in the way she always did gentle, rhythmic, soothing. She shifted to pull him closer still, even as he clung to her like she might disappear.
"You're safe."
She murmured, pressing a kiss to his temple.
"I've got you."
Mikhail closed his eyes, trying to match his breathing to the steady rise and fall of her chest. The sound of her voice, combined with the soothing rhythm of her heartbeat, helped to calm the remaining tremors in his own breath.
"Promise?"
The question slipped out before he could stop it: small, vulnerable, the question of someone who had already lost too much. His grip on her tightened unconsciously, as if she might vanish too if he didn't hold on tight enough.
Luna's hand stilled in his hair for a moment before she exhaled slowly. When she spoke again, her voice was steady and firm.
"I swear."
She whispered against his forehead, pressing another kiss to his temple before resting her head on his.
"I am not going anywhere."
Mikhail let out a shuddering breath, fingers loosening just slightly. He hated how weak he felt, but Luna had always seen past his bravado to see the frightened boy beneath.
And right now he was too tired to pretend he didn’t feel like that small scared child.
So he just let himself lean against her, eyes closed, as he tried to ground himself in the feel of her heartbeat and the sound of her voice.
It wasn't enough to erase the ache in his chest, but it helped. A little.
Eventually, his grip slackened further, exhaustion creeping back in after the storm of emotions. But even as his body grew heavier against hers, Luna didn't pull away, didn't even shift away beneath his weight.
He could feel her breath against his hair, warm and steady, as her cold fingers resumed their slow strokes through his tangled locks. The rhythm of it, the quiet, unspoken reassurance, lulled him closer to sleep than any words could have.
His last thought before drifting off once more was simple, fleeting, but achingly sincere.
Stay.
And Luna did.
She always did.