Find Your Center III

"Find Your Center III" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
The front door to the house banged open, startling the two ex-Sleipnir Squad agents in their attempt to rest for the evening, and Bhaem immediately scooped up his nearby club and filled his chest to bark out a warning. But the intruder yelled first. 
“Milae!?”
Tulli and Bhaem looked at each other, then sprinted to the stairs. “Who’s there!?” she squeaked. A short young man darted into view at the foot of the staircase, gripping the threshold in a panic. His dark hair was awry and his eyes were huge. “Yun, what are you doing here?”
“Where’s Milae?” he demanded.
“We don’t know,” Bhaem said, voice low. “He got a letter from some kind of little…bird-thing that turned into a portal, and it looked bad. Asked it to take him somewhere. Then he was gone.”
“Oh, helvítis–” He put a hand to his forehead, staring wildly at nothing. “I have to find Juro–thank you–” Yun blasted back through the front door before the two half-breeds even had a chance to say anything more.
A few hours later, outside Haligan village proper, the same short young man came into being standing ankle-deep in a fresh layer of snow, and immediately gagged and covered his mouth at the amount of blood and charred flesh and feather that was strewn across the ground. Yun immediately turned away, his eyes reflexively tearing up from the sight. After several heaving breaths, he felt marginally better, and avoided the carcass at the base of the house to look for other clues. He felt his foot crunch on something light and flat, and as he kicked it up out of the snow, he saw that it was a torn sheet of parchment, with a familiar handwriting. His eyes quickly scanned over the words, and he nearly threw up again, as Milae’s memories informed him of just who exactly this was. Looking indirectly at the body, he could tell that this mess was, indeed, very dead, and not about to get up and attack him. He also saw a slightly-splintered hoe, and several different footprints–hooves, narrow human boots, talons, and small, round paws. He took a breath, activated, and immediately froze in place upon hearing Milae fearfully bellow Dario’s name from down the street.
***
Ingrid Bergman, grandmotherly as ever, did her best to treat Dario and Milae’s wounds. The former was far more injured than the latter, and with his hands damaged like they were, he found it difficult to intone any magic that would allow him the recovery he needed. At the very least, they were island-bound for the night. Milae wasn’t sure he wanted to return to the Jaw so soon after their ordeal, anyway. It reminded him of the first time saving him from Sylar in the golden timeline–the two of them limping to a fussy healer who put them to rest for the night, together. Milae’s head was dizzy and hurt something fierce, to which he could only be prescribed rest. Dario had a salve applied to his skin, which was then wrapped to encourage recovery. They laid down early that night, exhausted both physically and mentally. Milae, however, had difficulty finding true rest. He ached all over, and every time he would drift off, he would hear a noise and start back to wakefulness, scared that Dario was being attacked again.
After going on like this for an indeterminate time, there was a set of footsteps crunching through the snow from outside. The door to the hut creaked open far too quickly to let Milae ignore it. With a labored breath, Milae gingerly turned his head to face the silhouette in the doorway. His eyes were fuzzy with sleep and confusion, but they soon cleared, and he sighed, “Helmingur…”
Yun, who looked fatigued and haunted, took a step into the hut and inhaled to speak, but Milae lifted a hoof to his mouth, shushing him, and then pointed at the cot near his feet, where a lanky man was curled up with a fully-bandaged arm across Milae’s lower legs, his chest rising and falling slowly and his long, furred ear twitching every few seconds. The goat took a second to extract himself from the half-embrace, but he couldn’t entirely stop Yun from rushing forward and keeping his hands on his upper arms, trying to keep him down.
“Don’t,” Yun whispered harshly. 
“We cannot speak here,” Milae replied, hushed but firm.
Yun pressed his lips together in protest and looked at Dario, his heart thrumming with pain. Milae used his proffered arms to stand the rest of the way upright, and Yun helped him carefully outside, making it to one of the outer benches of the Great Hall before Milae had to stop, sitting down carefully and pulling one of his legs up on top of the other in a half cross. Yun immediately shed the kimono layer of his clothes and gave it to Milae to keep him warm, and sat across from him. But his knee was bouncing in distress, and he folded his fingers together and looked away at the snow on the ground, his mind racing. 
“I assume you’ve already seen what happened.”
Yun broke his thoughts off at the surprising statement, watching Milae arrange the folds of the kimono across his lap and tucking his hooves into each sleeve. “Yeah,” he admitted quietly. He would rather not dwell on what he had seen, but Dario’s primal yells were hard to forget.
“And you are upset,” Milae continued plainly. 
“Stop.” Yun yanked his head up to glare at the goat, eyes shining behind his glasses. “I don’t wanna do this right now. I…” 
“Do what?”
“You don’t need to be my therapist.” His cold fists were clenched to the point of pain. “Of course I’m upset. I messed this whole thing up.”
The wind whistled hollowly through the island draped in night, making the few torches in the plaza flicker and stutter. Snow blew around the ankles of the two short figures huddled near each other, making do with the nearby heat of a dying fire pit. 
“Why would this be your fault?” Milae finally asked.
“I could’ve been there.” Yun leaned forward and pushed his hands up through his hair, staring at the ground between his legs. “Stop trying to walk me out of this one. I should’ve been able to warn you guys and I didn’t. I was asleep.” The frustration in his stomach was reaching unbelievable levels.
“I am not walking you out of anything,” Milae countered. Yun screwed up his face at the goat’s tone. “You’re still learning. You cannot be responsible for everyone–”
“What did you JUST tell me!?” The young man stomped to his feet, painting both their faces in a dim sea-colored glow as he threw his arms down by his side. Milae quickly shut his mouth. “I have a responsibility to help people that can’t do what I can. That’s what you told me.” He jabbed a pulsing finger back to the healer’s hut. “And if I can’t help everyone, I should have at least fucking been there to help him.” 
The words echoed slightly and were immediately smothered by winter’s cold. Milae quickly shuffled as though he was going to stand as well, but he settled back down and put both hooves in his lap, closing his eyes and drawing a deep breath in through his nose. Yun heard the shiver of anger and frustration in the sound, and he bit his lip and turned away, flexing his fingers by himself to cool down and will his magic back to nothing. 
“And Juro was there to watch it,” he whispered bitterly. 
Milae’s attention bit into his back like a cold blade. Yun said nothing. There was another minute of both of them calming themselves.
“You won’t explain?” 
Yun dipped his chin, pushing his hands into his pockets. “I told him I wouldn’t. I offered to. But…”
“Juro?”
Yun nodded. He heard Milae sigh in exasperation, and immediately grew guarded in response. 
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “He said he wanted to be the one to tell you.”
There was a soft clopping as Milae’s hoof knocked against something rapidly, probably the seat of the bench. Still, he kept his back to him. “I…appreciate that, but–”
“No, it’s not my choice,” Yun repeated, still on the defense. 
“It isn’t as if this does not involve me,” the goat replied. The tips of Yun’s fingers lit up again, brighter this time, and it crept up towards his wrists. His cheeks and neck felt too hot. “I do not understand how keeping me in the dark will–”
“Listen,” Yun snapped. There was a deep hum somewhere in his being; he was struggling to even just hear what Milae was saying. “I made Jin explain it to me, and that was a mistake. You have no idea how much I wish I could be you right now. If Juro pulls it together enough to tell you–great. But I’m not gonna be the one to say it first. I can’t do that to you.”
“I’m starting to think you’re the only one who can.”
He slashed a hand up into the air, his markings catching the meager firelight. His heart was hammering way too fast. The teal was nearly up to his elbows. “I’m not. I’m not some kind of savior for you, that stuff stresses me the Hel out. I’m just trying to help–”
“Yun–”
The entirety of Haligan Island felt a brief rumbling shock under their feet and through their beds and chairs, and where stone managed to peek through dirt and stone and snow, they saw a greenish light just barely peeking through any visible cracks, like a liquid bleeding through the heart of the earth itself. Closer to the plaza, the rumble actually lifted clouds of fallen snow back into the air, sparkling particles lifting up as if there was no gravity, rolling and spilling skyward like waterfalls or streams of sand. Stunned, Milae gripped the edge of the table while standing, his wide eyes fixed on the ground at Yun’s feet, where teal seemed to swirl and boil underneath the snow layer in a psychedelic display, glinting off the powder misting in the air around them. Yun slowly looked over his shoulder, back at Milae, and the goat froze in place. Along with the teal light highlighting the underside of his face, behind his glasses there was a harsh light in his eyes, reflecting off the back of his pupils in an eerie way. His tattoos were glowing fiercely, to the point where it hardly mattered if his sleeves were down or not. Along with the visual display of energy, there was a noise–something only Milae would be able to identify. The sliding, stressed sound of thread and string, pulling over and across each other to levels of hazardous tension, on a cosmic level.
“I said,” Yun spoke in a dangerous inflection unbelonging to him, “that you are going to wait. I will NOT lose him because of you.”
Milae recognized this power. And it had been a long, long time since he had been afraid of it. 
“I want to protect him as much as you do,” Milae said cautiously, mouth dry. “I mean no harm.”
Another powerful pulse pushed through the ground. Skin crawled and stung, teeth ached, lungs hummed, and glittering snowflakes hung around Yun as though caught in a powerful aura, diffusing the light below into a glimmering fog that blanketed the entire plaza, with Yun in the center. As the snow shifted gently in rising eddies and swirls, the silvery flash of a familiar long blade became visible by his side. “Then step off,” Yun growled, in the same voice that seemed to use his entire chest to speak. The energy radiating from him was palpable; there seemed to be a sheen just barely visible around him, like a barrier a few inches above his skin. 
One hoof after the other, Milae took three steps back in the glowing snow, and then slowly took a knee in the cold and ice. He’d already accidentally provoked one friend today. He didn’t need to do it again. 
“It is not a boundary I will cross. I swear.”
The threatening hum of the island gradually died away, as did the light below their feet, and Yun seemed to deflate with its leave. The night returned to relative ocean silence, wind blowing softly overhead once more. The hanging snow started to drift down to earth. Milae remained in place. But his heart was thundering. 
Yun pushed a hand into his face, suddenly seeming exhausted. “Uhf…” The blade of the naginata dipped and dropped into the snow, cutting a clean line into it as it fell. “I didn’t mean to do that…”
“Didn’t mean to…Yun. What on Midgard…?” Milae stood and carefully stepped through the floating mist of snow. He peered at the young man as though anything about his appearance would reveal his secrets. “Are you…are you still angry?”
“Angry?” He blinked, bemused. “No, I wasn’t…I wasn’t mad. I was just…” He looked down at the weapon at his side, as though just realizing it was there. In a panic, he lifted his hand and it instantly dissolved back into an indistinct bar of light, motes drifting into nothingness. “Oh, geez. I wasn’t gonna hurt you, was I?”
“I hope not…” The goat was still concerned, but he finally felt comfortable enough to fully approach. He seemed to be on the verge of mounting excitement, unable to contain it any longer. “That was power. That was something I have never seen in my life. What happened?”
Yun looked both surprised and shy, a sharp contrast to the aloof disdain and threat he had just been posing before. Words and repeated phrases thumped inside his mind like a heartbeat, the only ones able to explain his current feelings. 
If something happened to them…or anyone else…because of me…I don’t even know how to live with that.
I don’t want to hurt people. I don’t want to put them in danger. I don’t think it’s right. I want to save them.
I don’t want to make people need to save me any more.
He blinked slowly. “I was just…keeping everyone from getting hurt. I wanted to protect them.”
Milae stared at him for a long moment, unreadable. Yun feared that he had done something incredibly wrong. Then he broke the spell by putting a careful hoof on his shoulder.
“You may not want to be a savior,” Milae said quietly, hopefully, “but despite that…I think we may have found your center.”