towerofanimus | ▲ 001 ▲

Entry tags:

▲ 001 ▲

Characters: Link and whoever wishes to poke him
Setting: Room 04-04 and Floor 1, breakfast time
Format: Prose preferred, but feel free to use action/brackets
Summary: Link wakes up, completely unsurprised and unbothered that his world has ended. That's old news. Time to go eat some oatmeal and figure out where he is.
Warnings: Spoilers for the Skyward Sword prequel manga

Link was only half-surprised to be waking up. One does wake in the afterlife after death, no? But as he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, something was quite wrong. This strange suit was uncomfortable and strange looking. The room was sparse and seemed overly sterile. And how in the world did the ceiling glow? He tugged at the collar around his neck, frowning. Thankfully it wasn't restricting his breathing, but it was bothersome.

This was far from what he had pictured.

There were a few things to be inspected, though. Three other beds, all empty, as well as a nightstand with two envelops upon it. Frowning curiously, Link lifted the first one and carefully tore it open. Strange, that it did not require a seal to remain shut. There was a slight ache in his chest as he read it. Yes, he knew that his home had been destroyed. He didn't need that reminder of his failure. At least he could rest assured that his people were safe in the White Goddess's loving arms.

The second letter, however...

The further Link read, the stranger things became. All these things that were expected of him... This was where he would sleep; unexpectedly three others would be occupying the room with him. Food could be found downstairs. What was a 'network'? A postal system of some sort? Link placed the second letter on his nightstand next to the first. Perhaps he could find somebody to speak with about it.

He got out of bed, cracking the cricks out of his neck and approaching the chest that was obviously his and thankfully unlocked. He pulled it open with a grin.

"Excellent." He smiled as he pulled the Master Sword from the chest, inspecting it carefully. As expected, it had taken no damage in the battle. He pulled it partially from the scabbard, closely inspecting the triangular symbol that had appeared on the blade. He set the sword aside, pulling out his various other belongings. The ridiculous white jumpsuit was on the floor within seconds, soon to be replaced with Link's signature green tunic, hat, and boots. He contemplated putting on his mail and gloves, but chose not to. They would stay in the trunk. He was only going to eat breakfast, hopefully. Link put in his earrings, setting his gloves, sword, and armor back in the trunk and closing it. He opened his door and set out into the hallway.

Time to find out what this afterlife was all about.

Link fumbled for a moment with the elevator buttons before making his way to the first floor. The dining area was a reasonable place to look for people, and he was hungry.

He settled himself at a table with the bowl of oatmeal a worker had handed to him, taking a look around the room. There were other people milling about, chatting and eating. He dug into his oatmeal, which wasn't half bad. The food quality in Hylia had suffered significantly under the crumbling regime of the king.

Link had intentionally sat himself at one of the larger tables as if to hopefully invite company.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There is something strange about falling back into routine after the past... what, three weeks? It has felt like the world has constantly been shifting and shattering beneath her feet, and the most she has been able to do is hold on and hope for a foothold.

And yet, here she is once again, putting together a morning meal before starting the rest of her day. The choice of food is odd - so much chocolate and sugar! - but it's a welcome change from the constant strawberry pink of last month. Still, for now, she's content to go on with this routine - this false sense of peace...

... Until that green catches her eye.

It's been so long since she has last seen it, she hardly believes what so plainly sits before her. But the vision is persistent, it doesn't fade in and out of the corners of her vision, and for a moment, her heart races with the thought that maybe, just maybe, her Link has been returned to her.

Closer inspection proves this not to be the case, of course. This boy-- no, this man is taller, broader than the hero she knows, and there's a hardness in his eyes that she hopes dearly that her own Link will never have. But... there is this vague, ancient sense of familiarity in her heart, and despite knowing that this Link has no reason to know who she is, she crosses the cafeteria to place her plate across from him.

"... May I sit here?"

When Link heard a woman's voice ask to sit, he glanced up from his oatmeal to respond, but paused. It was the same feeling he had gotten when that man walked by him in the hall earlier, but somehow the opposite. The familiarity was there, but it was of the opposite sort. It was not dread that pooled in his chest, but a strange sense of reverence and... respect, was it? He couldn't tell. Perhaps it was something this place did to people, a synthetically induced feeling.

But goddesses, it felt as real as the mediocre slop in the bowl before him.

"Certainly." He finally found his words after a moment of foolish, open-mouthed staring. As he got a better look at her, something in his subconscience decided that she was younger than he remembered.

Younger than what, though?

Zelda smiles politely in response, both in gratitude and to shake off the mild embarrassment that comes with being stared at. It's odd, though, the staring. He makes no reference to the Royal Family like many others have done upon meeting her, yet there is awe there that she cannot quite place.

Curious. But with permission granted, she takes her seat, momentarily glancing down at his meal before looking back up to the hero that sits before her.

"You have recently awoken here?" She asks, but it's more statement than question. She likes to think she would be one of the first to know if a Link was present in the Tower, and even besides that-- "Most who have been here a while will at least attempt to flavor the oatmeal with berries or fruits from the forest floors."

"Yes, this is my first morning." He gave a slight laugh. She's the second person to make a comment about the oatmeal.

"I did not think it was too bad, but apparently I have simply been missing out on the good stuff!" Again, prison slop for four years left an impression on a man! He felt like he was dining like a king!

Her comment about forest floors caught his attention, but he let the conversation flow as it would. There was no point in bombarding her with questions.

"Hah, well, when there is something to be offered besides oatmeal or nutrition bars, most will take advantage of it," she says lightly, though there's a hint of nervousness in her tone that suggests something sinister about only having oatmeal and food bars to eat. She's not unfamiliar with having to scavenge for a decent meal, but Goddesses above, it's nice when she doesn't have to.

"But it is for the best, most likely," she continues. "New arrivals need to eat the oatmeal before anything else, lest they wish to, ah... become sick."

... Yes, that's a polite way to put it.

Link raised an eyebrow at that.

"You get sick if you do not eat the oatmeal?" Good thing he didn't protest, then.

"That is correct." She nods. "Though do not ask me why. It is yet another mystery of this Tower that its administrators have not enlightened us on."

There's that dark undercurrent in her tone again as she mentions the administrators...

"Somebody told me they do not enlighten us on much of anything." Link sighed.

"Of course not. The more we know, the more we present a danger to them and the control they exert over this place. Occasionally, they have appeared before us for the expressed purpose of answering questions, but they always speak in half-truths and phrases that are meaningless to anyone who does not have the required information."

She speaks with frustration, a frown tugging at her lips. Oh, she'd like to tell him about her plans to retrieve a cache of information from the administrator levels, but they have only met, and despite the sense of familiarity, she may as well be a stranger to him.

"Forgive me, it is something I have been mulling over for quite some time, now. I have a collection of notes of what they have said in my room, if you ever wish to look them over."

"No, do not apologize, your openness about information is very helpful. I would very much like to read over your notes." He frowned, tapping the end of his spoon against the table.

"But why did they allow me to keep my sword and armor? If that is not a threat, I don't know what is."

"My dorm number is 1-09, then. Unless, that is, you would like me to fetch them after you have finished your meal."

It's not as though she has much else to do right now. Sighing, she rests her chin on her fist, staring off seemingly into space.

"Steel nor strength intimidate them. I would not say their powers are godlike, but... they are unlike anything we have seen." --oops, did she just imply being from the same world as this Link-- "One possessed the ability to disintegrate and reconstruct things with a mere touch. Another is responsible for pulling us here and holding a barrier around the entirety of this building."

Something darkens in her gaze. "A man by the name of Ganondorf Dragmire, one who has the ability to hold an entire country in fear for years, recently attempted at direct assault against their leader, but his attacks were shrugged off as though they were nothing. Attacking them directly is pointless."

She looks back to the hero, then, watching him carefully for any recognition of the name of the Evil King. If he knows of him, that will answer a few of her own questions...

"I am nearly finished now. Would you mind going there momentarily?" He scraped his spoon against the bottom of the bowl. Link didn't catch when her tongue slipped; he simply assumed that the 'we' referred to the resistance movement.

He frowned, though, at the mention of the one called Ganondorf. Not at the name, but at his failed coup attempt.

"Not even a dent?" A younger Link wouldn't have thought twice about whether or not he could take the masters of this tower on. But after his humiliating defeat in the battle for Hylia, his ego had been cut down a few notches.

"Not at all." Better to get him acquainted with the tower sooner rather than later, after all, and her own meal is a bit too sugary to truly be appetizing to her.

But, hm. No surprise or shock at the name of the Evil King. She supposes that rules out this particular Link coming from an era after her own. Curiouser and curiouser.

However, she has to shake her head at his question. "If the stories I have heard are correct, she even went so far as to patronize him and call him 'over-dramatic' afterwards."

... Which, in all honesty, she finds just a little bit amusing, but Death Mountain will freeze before she admits that.

"That leads me to believe that our situation is merely amusing for them." The more he heard about this place, the less he trusted it.

Link finished off the oatmeal, sitting back in his chair with a deep breath. There was no point in becoming uptight about the situation, not yet. He wasn't going to make allies if he came across as being moody and difficult to deal with.

And there was definitely something about this young woman...

"My name is Link, by the way." He managed another smile.

"The ones who remain do not attempt to show otherwise," she remarks with just a hint of melancholy. With Dax gone, the only one who could truly be altruistic is Zo, and he is but a child. And Zelda knows all too well what the dire consequences of foolish children can be.

At the hero finally giving his name, however, she can't help but smile knowingly, thoughts going to a time that seems so long ago, now.

... Link? Strange... It sounds familiar, somehow...

"I am Zelda, Princess of Hyrule. It is a pleasure to meet you, Link."

"You as well." He tipped his head with an small, interested smile. "Hyrule. That is interesting... I come from a place called Hylia." The name Hyrule rolled off his tongue nicely. He liked the sound of it.

Ah.

"Would I be correct in assuming you know of the Goddess Hylia, then?"

It's not a guarantee (the lake of Hyrule is named Hylia, after all), but then again, she's found that there have been very few mere coincidences in her life.

Mr. Hero perked up at that.

"Yes...! How did you know?"

He couldn't possibly imagine where she was going with this. Zelda was a princess of a place called Hyrule. She couldn't be the chosen leader for the people in the sky, could she? Was that what they decided to call themselves? Hyrule?

The thought of his friends brought an ache back to his chest. He prayed that they were okay.

"The story is lengthy, and I cannot say I have all the pieces of it yet, but..."

She can't help a slight pause then, her smile taking a turn for the awkwardly reassuring. Considering how the last hero of the sky she spoke to kind of... shut down when she said the Surface would become Hyrule, she feels like she might be dropping a bit of a bombshell here.

But he asked, so...

"I am her descendant."

"Her descendant?" It took Link a moment to realize his mouth was hanging slightly open.

"How is that possible?" Did this explain the strange familiarity he had experienced?

"The way I understand it... After creating Skyloft and sealing Demise the first time, Hylia shed her divinity and reincarnated as a mortal girl so that she might be able to use the Triforce against Demise when he inevitably rose again. This mortal girl, the first Zelda, and her chosen hero would later descend from Skyloft to the Surface, defeat Demise, and found the country of Hyrule."

She speaks calmly, as though recounting such legends is something she was born to do, though... she does become a bit hesitant when she finishes.

"... Unless you mean how is it possible that I am sharing a meal with you despite clearly coming from a different time, in which case I would have to say that is a question better teased out of the administrators than myself."

Link watched Zelda in silence, for how long, he could not tell.

"Goddesses..." he whispered, sitting back in his chair. His gaze fell to the table between them as he tried to take it in.

"They called it Skyloft...." He looked naturally to the ceiling, then. "I was there. I was there when she-" he cut himself off "-when you sent my comrades into the sky. I had to stay behind. I was..." Link pulled off his hat, running a hand through his hair and finally looking back to Zelda.

"And they were able to return to the Surface?" There was an ache in the 'old' Hylian's chest and behind his eyes. They lived. Not only had they lived, but they had thrived.

The matter of how they had managed to jump through time seemed completely irrelevant right then.

Unseen by Link as he stares up in wonder, the Princess' hands instinctively clasp over her heart when he corrects himself, when he says that she, Zelda, had been the one to create the land in the sky. There's something... ancient and heartbreaking there, though she cannot begin to describe what it might be.

She makes sure the mild confusion at the feeling is gone from her expression when he finally looks back to her, and she nods quietly at his question.

"I do not know how much time passed between the creation of Skyloft and the founding of Hyrule, but yes. They did." She smiles. "Hyrule is a beautiful country. I would not want to live anywhere else."

And she decides right then that she is never going to tell this man how her actions would doom it to a watery grave.

Link leaned closer to the table, now on the edge of his seat with a boyish sort of wonder in his eyes.

"Tell me more about it. Please." He needed to know, needed to hear from her what had become of his home, and he was blissfully ignorant of any ill-doings or failures of fate that may have led Hyrule to ruin.

Hyrule... So the people never forgot their origins, never forgot the goddess who shed her immortality for their sake.

Edited 2013-03-16 20:23 (UTC)

Ah, now there are the eyes of the Link she knows. Truly knows, and not through old, long forgotten memories hiding in her bloodline.

Her smile turns to one of faint amusement, and she closes her eyes, envisioning the country she has not seen for over a year.

"... A great field lies in the center of the country, accounting for a majority of the land. There is a ranch in the middle of the field which supplies Hyrule with its horses and milk, and it is run by a sleepy older man and his hard-working daughter.

Hyrule Castle is to the north, on top of a hill that overlooks the busy town nearby. Castle Town is always lively, with a wide variety of shops and games to choose from. It almost seems impossible to visit them all in a single day.

To the north-east is Death Mountain, a volcano where the Gorons make their home. Their leader is a fearsome man, wild and brave, but he also loves music and dancing, and the easiest way to cheer him up is with a lively tune. At the foot of the mountain lies Kakariko Village, a traditionally Sheikah village, but my attendant Impa opened it up to the poor and has been revered by the residents ever since.

To the east is Zora's River, and the Domain they live in, which is the source of almost all the water in Hyrule. The Zora Princess is stubborn and proud, but she would do anything to help her people.

South of the river is the entrance to the Kokiri Forest, which is so dense and thrumming with magic that few outsiders have ever set foot inside. The Kokiri themselves are a race of eternal children, who are under the protection of a guardian spirit called the Great Deku Tree. ... I have a friend who spent a great deal of time there - if I ever see him again, I can tell him to find you, if you wish."

Did her voice just become a bit melancholy at that bit? Maybe, maybe not, but nevertheless, she dives back into her description.

"To the immediate south is Lake Hylia, a vast lake that sparkles in the morning sun. A few Hylians have set up businesses along its shores - a laboratory for one, and a fishing pond on the opposite side - and it is the most likely place for a non-Zora to see one, given that they tend to remain in their Domain, which only those who know the song of the Royal Family can access.

Finally, to the west is the Gerudo Desert. The Gerudo are a race composed almost entirely of women, with a single male born every 100 years. The desert is harsh, but the Gerudo people are spirited and enduring. They are thieves, but they also have a sense of honor, refusing to steal from women and children, and finding killing to be just as repulsive as anyone else."

Of course, Ganondorf is the exception to the rule. Taking a deep breath, she finally reopens her eyes, though she doesn't seem to immediately come out of her nostalgic reverie, as she continues to stare down at the table between them for a moment before looking back up.

"Is that a decent start?"

Edited 2013-03-16 22:29 (UTC)

shhh I'm totally not late to this and gomen for tl;dr

No you're never late and tl;dr is beautiful okay

sweet uwu

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