towerofanimus | The flow of time is always cruel...

Characters: Jaded, 28 year old Zelda and you!
Setting: Dorms, Floor 12, 48, and 11
Format: Starting in action, but I'll match.
Summary: Yet another of the Tower residents has been affected by this month's event, and the ten 'years' she's lived through have not been the kindest to her.
Warnings: Possibility of violence if she gets annoyed.

Dorms
[The night is dangerous, and the Princess of Hyrule is already asleep - or close to it - when the subtle shift occurs. In a quiet instant, her body fills out just a bit, no longer that of a young maiden, and silver strands caused by stress pepper her blonde head. At the same time, her possessions rearrange themselves: her shining regalia, once meticulously cared for, now dull and dusty under her bed; her ocarina and harp, once her most precious possessions, now sitting unplayed at the bottom of her trunk, covered not by pretty silk dresses, but by simple cotton clothes.

The once-girl herself stirs slightly as the change happens, but is otherwise remarkably still through the night. Somewhere along the line, she must have either grown accustomed to the kind of nightmares Tower life would bring, or she learned how to control them.

In any case, she wakes with the dawn, as always, changes out of her nightgown quietly, and stops off at the women's restroom to wash her face before making her way to the elevator, all in a way that seems almost absurdly routine. After ten years of living in the same place, repeating the same thing over and over, she could probably do this morning ritual blind.

... And given how the Tower works, it's not too much of a stretch to say she actually has.]

Floor Twelve
Some say the world will end in fire.
Some say in ice.

[Oddly enough, this planetarium-esque floor has become one of Zelda's usual haunts over the course of ten years. It's morbid, watching the universe slowly die, reset, then die again, but to one so desensitized, that simply means the newer, more foolish arrivals will likely just pass this floor by.]

From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.

[She doesn't like interacting with them much, if she can help it. The hopeful, determined ones remind her too much of what she once was, something she doesn't like to remember.]

But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate...

["I can think of no better candidate to unite the free people of this tower." Yeah, right.]

To say that for destruction ice
Is also great...
And would suffice.

[Quiet and alone, she watches the destruction of universes again and again impassively. There's no horror in her eyes, no tense fear in her expression, and if you're lucky, you might hear her repeat a short poem that she's memorized over the years to herself.]

Floor Forty-Eight
[Like the planetarium, the graveyard possesses a silent sort of despair that tends to keep the newest of arrivals away. At least, there is rarely anything for them here. This is a place for those who have been hurt in one of the worst ways the Tower knows how.

By watching friend after friend disappear.

She does not mourn them. Because she doesn't believe they are dead or because the very concept of death is beginning to fade from her mind - she cannot say. Still, she finds herself wandering a certain section of the cemetery like a restless spirit, fingers grazing each marker as she passes.

Eight Links, all in a row. Three Zeldas next to them. A Sheik, then, nearby. Navi, Saria, Darunia, Fi, Pipit, Fado, Midna, Fierce Deity... glimpses, however brief, of the past and future.

... Minami, Samus, Ventus-- other familiar names dot the rest of the graveyard, and for one who hates remembering herself, she lingers here, losing herself in the memories she has of others.]

Floor Eleven, dusk
[One good thing has come out of ten years of being trapped, however.

She has gotten damn good at magic.

Blasts and arcs of divine fire follow her command, lighting up the quickly darkening meadow. As the rainbows begin to reverse themselves, there are intermittent bursts of what can only be called pure light, searing any phantom foolish enough to draw close and whisper to her in achingly familiar voices.

She has her own memories to eat away at her. She doesn't need such foul things as a reminder.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sounds about right.

[He looks over at the images of planets being swallowed up and turned into stardust.]

I'd like to think that my world had a good end, though. One that didn't leave too many people in tears. That is, if the whole world ending thing was true.

Does it matter if it is true or not, if that is what you wish?

[Something odd about her view of the world happened over the course of ten years. Where she once railed against the administrators for lying about the state of the worlds and then rallied to find a way to restore them, now... she can't bring herself to believe in anything except the finality of the Tower.

What does the state of the worlds or their ends matter, when they're all stuck here anyway?]

Either way, the people of your world are content - either in death, or in their lives which are as they've always been.

[It's true. He doesn't really care enough to find out what happened to those worlds.]

You're right. So...why ask whether it went in fire or ice if it doesn't matter?

You miss the point. In the end, fire and ice both work perfectly well for the purpose. By the time anyone might complain they would rather die with their desires or their hatred, it's already too late.

[Whee, morbid literary class.]

In that case, just live without hatred or desires, so you can die without regretting anything.

[But he can't remember any poems off the top of his head talking about that sort of death. A shame, really.]

How unfortunate, that so few can realize that way of living before it's too late.

[And, well, just because you're too tired for desires or hatred doesn't mean you don't have regrets, but she Does Not Talk about that.]

Can it ever be too late here?

[Here, in this Tower where death meant nothing until you reached a natural end. Talking about whether or not it's too late...also makes him think of Diarmuid. Of the Knight who had lost himself.]

"It's better to drown, or burn to death in a fire, or be skinned and roasted alive than to lose your soul in the Tower of Animus."

[Lose your soul, or lose your mind. The body might not die, but the thing that makes you "alive" will.]

If they want it, they'll have to come take it.

[And if he was awake for it, he'd fight it with everything he had.]

And if they have it already?

[Admittedly, she might just be trolling him right now. But it is a logical concern.]

[He shrugs.]

I don't feel any different, so I'll live as I always have. It's a pretty good life, even without a soul.

[Though if he found out for sure, it would be rather unsettling, or even maddening.]

I think you are the first to say such a thing.

[Even in her numbed, sardonic state, she can hardly consider this life to be "good" by any definition.]

[Meanwhile, Lancer tends to be generally optimistic. He can have fun even in the Tower.]

Am I? I can think of a couple of guys who might be able to say the same thing.

Are they sane?

[You never know with this place.]

As sane as you can get in the Tower.

[The Tower has its own (admittedly low) bar for sanity.]

So not entirely.

[A very, very low bar. You're more likely to trip over it than anything else, really.]

Forgive me, but I think I'll classify them as outliers rather than the norm.

Then I think I'll stay with the outliers. Besides, Heroes are different from normal people anyways.

[It's half a boast and half an admission of defeat. He'd still like to think that he's being perfectly sane and rational, though.]

The norm has never done anything extraordinary, anyway.

[Her own admission of defeat. Ultimately, she wasn't enough of an outlier to lead these people to freedom.]

Oh, I don't know. Some people are heroes because they have to be, and others are heroes because they choose to be. So you can choose to step outside of the norm and do something extraordinary.

But then you are no longer the norm, are you? And it's unlikely you ever were, to have the fortitude to do such a thing.

That changes over time too. Some people can gain that fortitude, and others can lose it.

[He can tell from experience.]

Maybe. Or perhaps everyone is destined to have only the amount of fortitude they're supposed to have.

[By the way she emphasizes destiny, it doesn't sound like she is fond of the concept.]

You can choose what you're destined for. Even if your fate was already decided, you don't have to let it affect you.

[In his eyes, if it's destined to happen sooner or later, it was better to live his life on his own terms instead of fretting over destiny. He'll just let his fate come when it comes.]

Hah!

[The bark of her laugh is harsh, cruel. It melts away the ragged civil coat she wears for the sake of politeness, showing the burned and broken heart it hides.

She sneers.]

The thoughts of a fool. You know nothing of destiny or fate.

[He tsks his tongue, as if he's being amused by the declarations of a child who does not yet know enough of the world.]

Hey, I'm a hero, you know. I was bound by fate in life.

[And he spent his life more or less giving it the finger and doing whatever he wanted anyway.]

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