mikleo | tales of zestiria | eachdraidh app

[touchyfeeleo]

( PLAYER ★ INFORMATION )

NAME: Maddie
AGE: 23
CONTACT: plurk: calliopium
CURRENT CHARACTERS & LATEST AC: N/A

RESERVATION LINK: Right over here!

( CHARACTER ★ INFORMATION )

NAME & AGE: Mikleo, 18
CANON & CANON POINT: Tales of Zestiria — As they go to confront Heldalf for the second time, after completing the four trials and Zaveid joining the party.
CANON INFORMATION: Here's a summary of the game's plot over at the Tales wiki!

PERSONALITY:

Mikleo is a water seraph hailing from the village of Elysia, which is a village made up entirely of seraphs and one human: Mikleo's best friend, Sorey. Seraphim are intrinsically connected to nature, having control over one of the natural elements, and are able to give their blessing over the land to keep malevolence (aka, the corruption of the human spirit) at bay.

Generally speaking, Mikleo is calm, collected and thinks through problems logically. His introduction to the game involves he and Sorey falling down into the ruins they're exploring, and while Sorey’s response is to shout and flail, Mikleo’s is to remain calm and conjure water magic to break their fall. He’s usually serious, not prone to smiling too often, but he definitely still acts like a teenager where it counts.

While Mikleo likes to think of himself as calm under all circumstances, he’s easy to rile up. The other party members take advantage of this, Edna in particular, and tease him often. His usual reaction to teasing is shouting and adamant denial of whatever he’s being teased about. For example, when Edna nicknames him “Meebo”, his instant reaction is, “It’s Mikleo! Mikleo, all right!? Not Meebo!”. So, while Mikleo considers himself to be mature, he can act like a typical immature (and sometimes bratty) teenager at times.  

Mikleo can be fairly biting and sarcastic in his humour when he wants to be: the most common victim of his own teasing is Sorey, such as when Mikleo comments he looks like a pig with lipstick when Sorey dons his new Shepherd’s cloak. His sarcastic comments are quick and nonchalant, just like his normal more serious observations. The only time his tone really changes, other than when he’s annoyed, is when he’s excited about something historical, or getting into a debate about something in the Celestial Record. Sometimes his sarcastic comments can go a little far too—he even manages to offend Edna in one skit and subsequently refuses to apologise (like a true Meebo).  

He’s also extremely stubborn—when he’s fixated on something, he’ll see it through, much like Sorey. When Sorey refuses to allow Mikleo become his Sub Lord, Mikleo gets angry with him, leaving the party temporarily. He still follows them, though, and catches up with them when they get into a bind to demand Lailah make him a Sub Lord. He’s very intent on not becoming a burden to the rest of the party, commenting often that he wants to become stronger so he can better help Sorey and the others.

While Mikleo isn’t usually prone to smiling and can be on the serious side (when he’s not freaking out over being teased, that is), he’s got a kind and caring side too. He’s not as easily trusting as Sorey is, but comes to care about the other party members. He’s angry on Alisha’s behalf when he finds out how badly she’s been treated by the council, particularly when they decide to send her to a plague town. He’s also firmly against pointless murder—he’s initially extremely disapproving of Zaveid because of this, believing that hellions deserve to be purified rather than killed, when Zaveid kills a hellion in front of them.

Like Sorey, Mikleo is a huge history buff. He’s a bookworm (confirmed when he says he read books for three days straight while Sorey was unconscious) and wants to explore ruins all over the world. It’s been his and Sorey’s dream since they were kids to one day visit every ruin, and Mikleo comments at one point that he’s planning to write a book about their adventure, once it’s all over. Mikleo and Sorey often debate various discoveries they come across, as well as geek out over them, much to the rest of the party’s chagrin. So basically, nerdiness is definitely part of his personality, and he’s quite intelligent and well-read, despite having never left Elysia before the beginning of the game.

While it’s Sorey’s dream for humans and seraphim to live in harmony, it’s Mikleo’s dream too. Having grown up with Sorey, and with seraphim who eat and sleep just to make Sorey feel more at home, it feels natural to him to have that dream. He also mentions that part of his dream is to purify hellions as well, to restore balance to the world after malevolence has taken over so much of it, and he is also just as intent as the others on stopping the Lord of Calamity, Heldalf.

Mikleo’s most important relationship is his relationship with Sorey. They’re best friends, have grown up together and have never been apart, so they know each other better than anyone. They share a passion in ruins exploring and history, something that’s said to have kept them occupied when they were children. His friendship with Sorey is where Mikleo’s loyalty shines through—Mikleo is quite protective of Sorey, sticking by him no matter what. He trusts Sorey through thick and thin, worries about him, and shares his future dreams with Sorey. They’re basically inseparable.

His other most important relationship is with Gramps. Mikleo and Sorey were essentially raised by Gramps, as well as the other seraphim of the village, and Gramps is the closest thing Mikleo has to a father figure. Mikleo always listens to Gramps’ stories and advice, which is proven during a skit where Sorey calls him out on only knowing so much because he’s repeating what Gramps told him. Mikleo loves and respects his sort-of-father-sort-of-grandfather figure.

The other party members also become important to Mikleo, over time. While Alisha leaves the party earlier on in the game, Mikleo warms to her as they travel together. He comments that Alisha and Sorey are similar in a lot of ways, and also that he’s glad for Sorey to have another human friend. It’s clear that he has faith in Alisha, much like he has faith in Sorey.

He and Rose bond in a similar way: Mikleo glad that Sorey has somebody human who can help him. This is evident when he mentions in a skit that he still feels like Sorey sometimes flinches away from him because he's a seraph, so he’s glad Sorey has somebody who can understand him as only as a human can. Rose likes to tease Mikleo much like the others do, so she riles him up too, but he warms up to her in skits and cutscenes as time goes on.

With Lailah, Mikleo respects her oath (that she can’t tell them anything plot relevant) and usually reacts with amusement when she goes off on a tangent to avoid speaking about something important. Lailah is sort of like the older sister figure of the group—or so she says, as Zaveid calls her the mother figure instead. He gets along with Lailah and is more openly friendly with her than the other seraphim.

Edna and Mikleo kind of got off on the wrong foot. For a long time. Objecting to being called “waterboy” and then “Meebo”, Mikleo gets riled up practically whenever Edna speaks to him or pokes him with her umbrella. They bicker like bratty siblings, but over time, they start to get more amicable. It’s clear Mikleo does respect her in some way, seeing as he takes her advice during skits, and also promises not to tell Sorey she feels sore after using her power to armatize with him. 

Mikleo and Dezel don’t interact too often, but when they do, they seem to have a somewhat friendly rapport. Dezel tries to help Mikleo with his battle technique, as well as trying to help him get over his fear of dogs—neither are exactly successful, but he tries to be a good mentor. Zaveid, on the other hand, is a mentor of an entirely different kind, often mentoring Mikleo on romance and women (or trying to, anyway), which Mikleo doesn’t seem to appreciate very much. They do get along much better, however, when Zaveid is being serious and talking about more serious topics.

All in all, Mikleo is calm, collected and intelligent, while also being an immature teenager who acts his age at times (to a certain extent, even more so than Sorey), sensitive to teasing and all too easily riled up. He’s loyal, kind and empathetic, as well as an extremely geeky history nerd, and he stays true to his dreams by travelling with the others to essentially save the world. (And maybe see some cool ruins along the way.) 

COURT ALLIANCE & REASONING:

The Diamond Coterie: As a seraph, Mikleo intrinsically values his connection to the world: he’s much more connected to it than a human could be, having control over one of the elements that makes up his world, water. Mikleo values history, his relationship with Sorey and the other party members, and most importantly, he values his and Sorey’s dream of purifying malevolence so that one day humans and seraphim might be able to coexist more peacefully. So, the Diamond Coterie is a good fit for him—their mission in the game is, essentially, to preserve the world by stopping the disruption of the malevolence, so it fits in with what the Diamond Coterie values. And, after all, Mikleo is the hugest history nerd in their world, along with Sorey.

ABILITIES:

As a water seraph, Mikleo has control over the element of water, and uses a staff as his weapon of choice. His battle abilities consist of martial artes and seraphic artes, which are special kinds of spells only able to be used by seraphim.

- The seraphim are essentially immortal and live for thousands of years without needing to eat or sleep. (Though Mikleo does both of these things, having grown up with Sorey, who’s human. All the seraphim in Elysia did so, so that Sorey would fit in). It’s said that a seraph stops ageing physically when they reach their full potential. Normal humans in their world are unable to see seraphim, exceptions being the Shepherd and humans with naturally high resonance (like Rose), or humans who form a Squire pact with the Shepherd (as Alisha and Rose did). So, Mikleo is a bit different to a regular human. 

- Here’s a full list of Mikleo’s artes that he's able to use in battle. He uses close range melee attacks with his staff, which have quite a long reach, and water and ice-based artes that can hit from afar. He can also use healing artes, like the other seraphim.

- Apart from that, Mikleo is Sorey’s Sub Lord, meaning he's formed a pact with Lailah (who is the Prime Lord) to use Sorey (the Shepherd) as a vessel. This means he can purify malevolence, which is essentially the corruption of the human spirit found in their world. Normally, Mikleo's soul resides inside of Sorey outside of battle due to this pact, as do the other seraphim's souls. 

- He can also “armatize” with Sorey and Rose, which temporarily merges their souls and grants Sorey/Rose extra strength in battle, as well as control over the element of water. His divine weapon is a bow, which is used in Sorey/Rose’s armatized form, with arrows made from water magic. Here’s an example of what Sorey and Mikleo look like when armatized and what Rose and Mikleo look like when armatized (their armatization being the blue one).

- And lastly, Mikleo is able to utilise a water-based ability called the Spectral Cloak outside of battle, which makes the user invisible for a few seconds.

INVENTORY:

• The circlet: Mikleo wears a circlet (usually hidden under his bangs) that he’s had since infancy and never takes off. It’s a personal keepsake of his.

• His weapon: Mikleo carries his staff with him at all times, though all video game characters seem to have some secret hammerspace where they keep them outside of battle. He also appears to carry the divine bow with him, but it’s only summoned into existence when he’s in armatized form with Sorey or Rose, so it’s possible he might not be able to bring this to Eachdraidh.

• His clothes: Well, that hopefully goes without saying: Mikleo will be arriving looking like this.

( WRITING ★ SAMPLES )

NETWORK SAMPLE:

[ It’s something of a novelty to Mikleo for so many humans to be able to see and hear him, so of course the first chance he gets, he uses the locket.]

Hello. My name is Mikleo, of the... Diamond Coterie court, apparently. I'm here as a Shardbearer, like I imagine everyone else is. [ He doesn't understand all the specifics yet, but he intends to find out what he can. ] I wanted to ask for some help—in finding more information about this place. If you know of any historical records or any other historical texts, I'd appreciate it. Or even if you know of any ruins or other places that might reveal more about the past. 

On top of that... [ He pauses for a moment. ] I'd also like to hear about the histories of your own worlds. It's strange to think that we're all from such different places, but each world must have its own story to share, right? It's something that seems important to remember while we're away from them.

LOG SAMPLE: His thread over here at the test drive! Also here is a muse box thread.