towerofanimus | Nocturne, Second Movement ♪ Mourning

Entry tags:

Nocturne, Second Movement ♪ Mourning

Characters: One distraught Princess of Hyrule and you.
Setting: Floor 25, morning of the 28th
Format: Action, but can switch to prose if you'd like
Summary: Zelda received a letter.
Warnings: Mentions of NPC death, so much angst, slowness on tags because of school

[Zelda,

She's read it a thousand times by now - her name in so neat, so precise script.

If you have received this, then I am dead. I can't be sure if you have all been made aware of it yet. You expressed a desire to help me, and I did appreciate that offer. I have gathered information about this place and sought to act to put a stop to everything myself, but apparently I have failed.

It was him. It was all him. The elevator being open, the worker units with damaged collars assisting them once in the administrative levels, the meeting that had kept the rest of them distracted long enough for her and the others to find the truth... It was all him. And now he has paid the ultimate price for his rebellion, the ultimate sacrifice for trying to truly save them.

I have placed this information somewhere safe in the administrative levels. Do not be hasty, but at some point please act to find this information. It will be within places only I can access, and has security as a necessity, to keep the others out, so please be careful and do not act alone.

And he knew. If nothing else, this letter proves that. He knew what the consequences of his actions would likely be, and he still fought for them, still died for them. People who never trusted him, never realized what an ally they had in him. Even now, in death, he's trying to help them.

Burn this letter, but please spread the information around. Do not use the network to pass this information on, speak of it only in person and never within range of any of the worker or retrieval units. The bathrooms and sauna levels are the safest, but as long as you are quiet and not too near the walls you should be safe.

That is why Zelda sits here, in the center of the meadow, far away from any walls that might watch her. That is why she huddles protectively around the letter, keeping it hidden from prying eyes. That is why she cries, openly, visibly, for she needs to grieve before she can get to work.

Thank you for your offer of help. I regret I was not able to help all of you.

She holds the tear-stained paper out before her, etching his words in stone in her mind and soul.

Regards,

Between her thumb and forefinger, a flame begins to catch, licking at too-neat, too-precise script. Then, in an instant, it bursts into a spark of divine flame, and nothing remains of Dax's will but a few wisps of nigh-invisible smoke. And Zelda.]

Thank you... Dax...

[It was him. It was all him.

And she must mourn before she can enact his will.]

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[Does she care at all about his momentary discomfort or vulnerability? No, not at this time. All she cares about is Arthur having a mind of his own, not at the beck and call of monsters and sadists.

She's quiet for a long moment, for if hope has been ripped away like an old rug, then she's been on a floor that tilts and turns unexpectedly for days now. She's... torn. He has a right to know what they're doing to him - they all do. But... if the thought enrages her so greatly, what will it do to him?]

Do not... [She starts, weakly, between sniffles.] Do not work in the library any more...

[And Goddesses above, please do not question her why.]

[It's so out of the blue, and not related to any of the strange reports or feeds on the network, that England at first has trouble absorbing what she says. It fills him with a sense of dread, regardless.

He does not want to deny her request, especially seeing as the issue seems to have her so distraught. He doesn't actually mind working in the library most of the time; it's definitely one of the less dangerous jobs, and he spends a great deal of time there anyway.

He rests his cheek against the side of her head. There's a twisted knot of distrust in his stomach about this unknown trouble of Zelda's. He wants to know what has her so spooked about his job, but he's not certain he's ready for any more earth-shattering news just yet.

He braces himself before asking.] ...what danger is it that I need to avoid?

[Even though they are too close for it to truly matter, she finds herself looking down, away, feeling as though she's shrinking in his hold. She should tell him, she needs to tell him, but she doesn't want to, and oh, wouldn't it be nice if she could reverse time and stop any of this from happening before it started?

She can't, however, and it's another long moment of tense silence before she responds.]

I... It is not good, Arthur. I do not know if I should tell you.

[She wants to protect him so badly, but her only options are hurting him with knowledge or letting him be used in ignorance.

It's a sadistic choice.]

[Just as he feared. He can't remember the last time he's actually gotten good news, so he supposes he shouldn't be surprised.

There are some mixed feelings about her effort to protect him. He has long since passed the age where he needs to be protected — it's even reflex to feel a bit insulted by the idea. He knows Zelda doesn't mean any harm by it, but— well, isn't it proof enough of his softness that he himself is reluctant to hear what she has to say?

Of course, the fact that she thinks he's someone even worth protecting is something else entirely.

He feels sick with the internal conflict, and even sicker that he's having it in the first place.

His voice is resolute.] Please tell me.

[England doesn't need protecting.]

[Again, she's quiet for a moment, but she eventually draws back, taking a steeling breath as she forces herself to look him in the eye once more. Her hands remain on his, however, holding onto them tightly, not allowing him to pull away from her. Feeling him attempt to tug himself out of her grip down there was bad enough.

England may not need protecting, but Zelda is here for Arthur if he needs her.]

... I found the administrator elevator open, and... I went down. I... I found a library - Ruana's library. And...

[She can't help hesitating as she approaches the worst part; the words simply dry up on her tongue. Her brow furrows as she struggles, but soon she swallows her courage and presses on. Her words do grow more and more distressed, however.]

And you were down there. Sorting books. You would not respond to me or anyone, you had this... hollow look in your eyes, and-- there was a worker unit...

It said... It said you had been drugged. That anyone who has a job up here gets called to do work down there at times, and it has been that way since the beginning...!

[And to think, that's not even the worst revelation she found down there.]

[He doesn't try to pull back; Arthur's grip is firm in response, and he holds her hands as much as she holds his. He is more guarded as he looks into her eyes this time, a furrow in his brow being the most notable evidence of his worries.

At first, he's surprised by her discovery of the elevator (and impressed, if the way the furrow smooths out and his eyebrows arch up is any indication). To hear news of progress is astounding — and of course Zelda would be involved in it. He would expect nothing less.

The impression is, needless to say, short-lived.

England's expression goes terrifyingly blank. He listens that way for the duration of Zelda's explanation, though it seems like it goes in one ear and out the other after the point of "you had been drugged".

His face is blank, and the rest of him is still. He remains that way for a long moment, holding the news in the air for as long as he can.

The first hint of motion is an abrupt tension in his fingers. He squeezes Zelda's hands (not enough to hurt her, but his hold is surprisingly rough, the grip of someone who fears they may be about to lose whatever it is they're holding onto). He breaks eye contact to bow his head, so that Zelda will not bear the full brunt of the searing anger in his gaze. His breath shakes as he draws it in, and there's a tremble in his shoulders that shakes him down to the bone.

He's utterly silent, save for his harsh breathing.]

[She watches him, silent once she finishes. That alarmed, concerned look is back in her eyes when he doesn't immediately react, and for a fleeting moment, she fears she's activated that distant, lost state somehow accidentally.

The sudden iron grip on her hands is almost a relief, in that sense. One that doesn't last, to be sure, but a relief.

Even as one who was so isolated for so long, she can recognize the trembles of anger that shake him. She would have succumbed to that rage herself down there had it not been for a few well-timed words of calming (from whom she shall not name any time soon). Instinctively, she squeezes his hands in return, though in a more (hopefully) reassuring way, and her thumbs stroke the sides of his fingers softly.

Her actions run in opposition with her thoughts, however. Where his heart races with anger, hers runs with fear - fear for his well-being, fear for what he might do... it's impossible in that moment to put an exact reason to it. Which, perhaps, is why when she speaks again, it's like the words are just tumbling out of her mouth, lacking in her normal filters, finesse, and control.]

I'll fix it.

[Still, there's determination behind the desperation.]

I'll fix it - I will finish what Dax started. I will beat Ruana, somehow, and I'll end this nightmare.

[She leans in, as though to attempt eye contact again, but ultimately it matters less than making sure her words are heard.]

I promise. Just give me time.

[Her promises should mean nothing to him, a distant voice in the back of her mind tells her. After all, the last promise she made him ended with him dying gruesomely before his loved ones. But this time... this time, she has at least one card in her favor, and Goddesses be damned if she isn't going to play it for everything it's worth.]

Edited (missing words gj self) 2013-03-10 04:58 (UTC)

[He doesn't really have words to put to exactly how angry he is. They have uprooted him from the place he calls home and left him with very little to remind himself of it. They have given him people he cares deeply for, hurt them, and then sent them away. They claim destruction of everything that he is — they have reduced the proud nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to nothing more than a single soul in an empty, disposable body.

And now they use what's left as a tool, suffer him the indignity of turning him into a collaborator against his will.

He is through with lying back and taking this silently.]

You will have my hand. [The rage roils in his voice like a maelstrom, growing deeper and more dangerous with every syllable.] So help me— I will tear this tower apart and see Ruana's end by my own hands if necessary—

[The venom in his voice is extraordinary; on par with and even exceeding his declaration of war against Jason for his injustice against America. His hatred runs deep and he has been desperately putting it aside for so long in order to keep the people he loves safe, and now it rushes out past the crumbled reservoir of his composure. When he can bring himself to look at Zelda again, the fury clouds his eyes as a storm on the horizon.]

I'll help you. Whatever it takes— I'll help you.

I know.

[Her words are simple, but firm. Despite all her own self-doubts and criticism, the thought that he, the one she has known the longest who has remained within these walls, would not help her is one she has never entertained. And if he is a maelstrom, she will be the sea, directing his energy like an ocean current and pulling him back when it is needed to. If he is a storm, she will be the eye, a calm center amidst the harshest winds.

She takes the hands that have been promised to rip the tower and its true administrator apart, shifts them in her grip. Urging them up, she presses her cheek against them gently, closing her eyes as she does.

It scares her, honestly, to see him so furious. But it is a justified anger, and then best she can hope to do is quell it momentarily.]

This is not a war we can win with strength or steel, you know that as well as I. This is a war of attrition, and the only way we can succeed is if we can outsmart her at her own game.

[Opening her eyes, she stares at him not with the blazing, emotion driven inferno that once shined in her gaze, but rather a more quiet, calculated sort of determination.]

There is a cache of information hidden in the administrator levels Dax wished for me to find. I just need time to create a plan on how to retrieve it safely.

[So hold on until then, please.]

[He knows very well the truths that Zelda is speaking — he has tried to operate by them on his own terms, on a much smaller scale. He investigated every nook and cranny known to the Tower after he had been voted out of that game and there was no one left watching to interfere with his work.

But he had found nothing. He still hasn't. His efforts have been wholly ineffectual, and he's just so angry. He's sick of not having control over his life here, sick of being so powerless.

Funny, how he had always been the advocate of patience and strategy at home when he himself hates abiding by those terms. Too many centuries of having the world both at his fingertips and his feet have given him a lasting taste for being in control.

Arthur returns Zelda's gaze with iron, despite her words of wisdom. He's clearly not satisfied, and his silence says as much.

It takes some careful and evident restraint for him to close his eyes and breathe out a measure of his persistent fury.] ...I will aid you in this planning, if you so wish.

[Saying this seems to mostly placate him for the time being, though his hands still quiver with leftover adrenaline. From the vacuum of self-loathing for his own weakness, he manages to pull out a sliver of bravado that he hopes will lift Zelda's mood if nothing else.] My people are some of the best infiltrators and information-gatherers of my world.

It would bring me great satisfaction to offer my talents for this cause. [England is well aware of his own understatement, if the dissonant note of distaste is anything to go by. He'd love to sneak in right under the noses of the administrators.]

[This is why she was so hesitant to tell him. This... vitrolic rage that not even her offer of remaining hope can quell. She vastly prefers their conversations about queens, both of the royal and rocking sort.

Seeing her attempts to calm as a failure, she brings their hands back down to their original resting place. She looks at them regretfully, despite the slight attempt to cheer her up. Alas, her mood will not truly lift until Arthur no longer has the need to be so angry.]

I would greatly appreciate your help. You must know I look to you for wisdom when I cannot find it within myself.

[Ever since they first met so long ago (in this very meadow, in fact) that admiration and trust has been the foundation of their relationship from Zelda's side. And it's been something she's so desperately needed, for one who carries the weight of the world (and now the multiverse) upon her shoulders.

She doesn't know if she would be where she is right now without Arthur's presence, in short.]

... I must admit that I have little idea where to begin. The elevator will not simply be left open again, and the last time I led a forced entry, we... failed.

[Funny, how she's never mentioned making a break-in attempt before. How long ago was the Labyrinth, now?]

[Seeing Zelda so dejected by his own actions makes his heart twinge in a way that it does for very few people. It has become reflex for him to push people away when they advance upon him too quickly, so the sour taste in his mouth is one he's grown used to. However, Zelda's honest confidence in him has tipped the scale in favour of guilt over fear.

He squeezes her hands again, gently; this time, it's in silent apology.

He doesn't know what to say to her admission of faith. His first reflex is to insist that it is severely misplaced. Somehow, Arthur doubts Zelda would take that very kindly.

The conflict and the guilt are momentarily shoved down and away, locked in a chest somewhere out of sight to make room for the simpler matter of his piqued curiosity.

England strokes his thumbs over Zelda's wrists. The comforting gesture is rather indicative of his caution (and resultant worry about overstepping boundaries) in asking on the matter.] ...you've broken in before?

[... She nods, quietly, though her gaze remains lowered, as though she cannot bring herself to look him in the eye.]

It... It was a long time ago.

[When she was rash and stupid and believed that the administrators were entities that could be fought and triumphed over just like any other. When she was optimistic and idealistic and thought that if she just tried hard enough, everything would work out.

What a silly girl she used to be.]

When Jason created that maze, I could not just... watch. So I gathered a few of us that were left behind and broke in. We had made it to the outer wall of the labyrinth when Jason found us.

... He was not pleased with our meddling, to say the least.

[Given that they've both been in this wretched tower for longer than either of them would like to admit, she doesn't feel the need to elaborate on what happened next. The memory is like an old wound, now - the initial sting is gone, but the shame of her failure still aches when she remembers. And combined with her memories of what happened last June, well...]

... I am sorry. My promises of salvation do not mean much, in the end.

Edited (htmllll o9) 2013-03-22 20:02 (UTC)

[The maze.

An ordeal he'd almost managed to block out entirely, if only because so little of him was actually himself for the duration of it. He can almost hear the cacophony of voices in the back of his head again, facets of personalities that belonged to neither him nor his people.

Despite the echo of powers past, Arthur listens dutifully, with an expression that has fallen open without her eyes on him. He still has anger left over and he's quite willing to put it towards the administrators in Zelda's name, especially when he thinks of what the punishment must have been for such grave disobedience.

That idea makes him more furious than he was entirely prepared for, blind-siding him in a way that makes his blood boil.

England squeezes his eyes shut— swallows the ever-tightening knot in his throat. It takes a certain amount of courage, but he feels just rash enough to raise their joined hands and bring them in close until they rest over the quick beat of his heart.

Despite the rush of emotion churning his veins, his voice is uncharacteristically quiet.] That's- that's not true.

[For as often as he has comforted Zelda — for all the gentle words he has been able to spare, and the measure of honesty she has drawn from him that exceeds what he has afforded most other people...it's still strange to be direct about anything that really matters to him. But she genuinely wants to help him; her purpose is not glory, diplomacy, or heroics. She cares, and that's so damn strange that it's only fair to offer some strangeness in return.]

They mean something to me.

[The sudden movement surprises her; she doesn't know what she expected Arthur's reaction to her confession to be, but it certainly wasn't this. Her eyes lift - not enough to see his face, but to stare at where her hands now rest.

His heart.

It makes no sense. Take up the number of times she's failed and the number of times she's succeeded, and the failures will outweigh the successes every time. Arthur should, at the very least, be distrustful of any oaths she swears or plans she makes.]

... They shouldn't.

[Despite the melancholy note in her voice, her response is remarkably simple, as though she were stating a well-known fact of the universe. Because rationally, they shouldn't mean anything. Logically, he shouldn't place any more faith in her.

... But this isn't about logic at all, is it. That's why her hands are over his heart right now. This is about emotion and feeling and Goddesses above, she's terrible at those. She cares, so much, but the idea that someone could care back in equal measure, enough to forgo rationality, enough to disregard complete failure again and again, is one that she has not encountered very often.]

[He doesn't want to say any more; it's too much all at once. He knows he's already said too much, opened the door to his heart just a little too wide and forgotten the "Do Not Disturb" sign.

Though he burns with the compulsion to tell her that he cares less for her promises than he does for the sentiment behind them, he can't bring himself to choke the words out. Telling Zelda how much it means to him that she cares would be an indirect admission of a crucial weakness: it's very easy to hurt him. All one has to do is act like they care about him first.

He can't afford to be that open. He's made that mistake many times over now already.

But, he will not let her think that all of her efforts have been for naught.]

You have done more for the people in this wretched Tower than most could even hope to accomplish. [The edges of his tone are still soft, worn fine by emotion and words he won't let himself say. But the stone-hard certainty in his eyes cannot be mistaken.] You haven't failed. You've learnt. For your attempts, you've gained knowledge.

That's not— s'not failure. It's the key to success.

[He's trying so hard to keep that door from opening, but even taking a logical approach to this argument isn't covering up the way he keeps Zelda's hands close like they are a treasure he means to hold on to.]

[You've learnt. You've gained knowledge.

Arthur's words are kind. If they were directed towards anyone else, they would likely be very encouraging. But Zelda is the first Chosen of Nayru, the goddess who gave law to the world, and she has borne Wisdom on the back of her hand since she was a child.

All because of a mistake.

She stares at their hands, through Arthur's own, to the place where she knows Wisdom lies, and gradually, her expression begins to shift. Her brows furrow, her eyes narrow, though not angrily, and her lip begins to quiver. The pain of a girl who has seen too much in too few years makes its way into her gaze, and she doesn't have the centuries of experience needed to keep it hidden.]

... I wish it did not hurt so much to learn.

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Nocturne, Second Movement ♪ Mourning

BYE CEE AND JAMIE'S HEARTS GO BE FREE

free as a bird never to be seen again

while we sit here, dreading the trainwreck that's about to go down

i don't have enough popcorn for this

/braces for impact

the fuse has been lit

keeping calm is not a thing that is happening right now

yeah that is sort of the opposite of what is happening u_u

shhh nationdad shhh

he can't shhh it's too much

then please do not fly off the handle?

he is trying very hard to hold onto the handle

you can do it, Arthur!!!

i am now calling zelda's hands a metaphor for the handle

Zelda the sanity handle yeah that sounds about right

it is a lot to ask of a teenager i'm gomen

trying to take this thread seriously