towerofanimus | Take every moment; you know that you own them

Characters: Zelda, a box, her trusted friends and allies, and you!
Setting: One of the ladies' bathrooms, the cafeteria, the workshop, and somewhere else...
Format: Starting action, but can do prose!
Summary: A new month, a new plot point in Zelda's mailbox. In less resistance related news, stopping to smell the roses (or the rose flavored tea) is good for the soul, and the Princess is terrible at sewing.
Warnings: ~~DEAR GOD THE TL;DR~~ None as of yet.

Mailroom -> Bathroom; closed

[Ever since Dax's death, it's become routine. Wake up, get ready for the day, check the mail. Most of the time, there's nothing, and Zelda moves on with her day without a second thought. Sometimes, she receives letters - requests, offers of assistance, statements of solidarity, all varying in urgency, and she spends some time thinking of what to do regarding them. Sometimes she receives gifts, most often in the form of food, and she is quick to share the bounty with her descendant. Once, she received a particularly cruel package - a snowglobe of her castle, but without the snow to imply it is anything but underwater - and she can't imagine the workers in the mailroom enjoyed cleaning up the shattered, wet pieces of glass after she threw it against the wall (April was not a good month).

Regardless, the routine of checking the mail has given her some sense of normalcy, and on average, has brought her more hope than despair.

That fact continues to hold true on the first of May, as she opens door number 0001 to see a very familiar box (how could she forget it when she carried the thing out of Dax's room, when Ruler died seeing them to it?) simply sitting there, as though it wasn't touted as the key to removing the "obstacles" keeping the Tower populace from making their own choices.

She can't help a sharp inhale when she sees it and reads the short note attached, and she finds her eyes sliding to the side, to where the retrieval unit watching her stands silently. Do they know? Guy didn't mention anything about it when he spoke of what she told him while brainwashed into obedience, but... the others...? They haven't been able to talk about it since, and... could it be a trick? Could Jason have somehow taken the image from her mind and mimicked it in one cruel twist of the knife?

If he did... she couldn't bear if the others were exposed to any more danger because of her.

With equal parts hope and fear, Zelda takes the box from the cubby, tucks the note into a pocket, and starts up the stairs. Twenty or so flights isn't so bad with Farore's Wind, and soon she's even lost the unit trailing her. Which was the idea. She makes quick work of stealing away into the ladies' restroom, and as she hides away in one of the stalls (just... for good measure), she finds herself thinking of things over a year in the past, now. When Gandalf first approached her, when he said it was her destiny (and, oh, how she's grown to hate that word) to lead the people of this place out of here to somewhere better. When she said she was inexperienced, and she feared failure in such a monumental duty more than anything else.

How things have changed.

She breathes in, deeply, steeling herself for the worst and praying desperately for the best, and slowly, she opens the lid...]

Cafeteria; open

[And now for something completely different.

With a new month comes a new menu in the cafeteria, and while you can usually count Ruana to make meals thematic to some holiday and Jason to give nothing bunch water and nutribars, Riki has always been harder to pin down. But whatever she was expecting, it certainly wasn't this! The fragrant smell of flowers wafts over the cafeteria like a spring breeze, and for a moment, she isn't in the cafeteria at all, but rather her flower-filled courtyard from so long ago. Perhaps it's only a fleeting moment of pleasure at best in this place, but she feels like indulging, just this once.

In a rare display of contentment, Zelda can be found off to the side of the cafeteria, merrily nibbling at her breakfast and breathing in the sweet smell of her tea.]

Workshop; open

[Let it never be said Zelda is one to lose herself in indulgence, however! There is always work to be done, and not all of it id directly resistance related. Towers of monsters, horror, and death are not exactly kind to clothing, and after nearly sixteen months trapped within one, the Princess is beginning to run out of clothes. Her lessons back in Hyrule never got to the point of complex sewing, but it cannot be that hard, right? She has been hard at work the past few days, measuring and cutting and measuring again, and she thinks she's got the fabric at a point where it's ready to start sewing together.

... And then she actually tries sewing it together.

After the twentieth time of seeing the whole thing fall apart and the thirtieth time the thread's gotten tangled, the determined Princess of Hyrule drops her head to the workbench in defeat, sighing in frustration.

Sewing actually is kind of hard.]

Bathrooms, May 3rd; closed

[After sending out as many letters as she could to people she believes she can trust, Zelda now waits to reap what she's sown. She cannot possibly do this alone - the tower is far too large for her to take on herself. Especially if only a few of these 'microchips' can be on someone's person at a time.

Sure, it might seem a bit strange for someone to just... hang out in the bathroom, but if anyone asks, she simply tells them she's trying to get some peace away from her stalker unit.

And as for the men she contacted... well, they will find a rather androgynous Sheikah waiting in her place.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It's a nice surprise," Neal said. He'd seen enough horror in his life, longer than most in the tower. "I've seen enough crap to last several lifetimes. Even before I was kidnapped here." He'd be glad if nothing terrible ever happened again, but he knew that it was far too much to hope for.

He leaned against his chair, smiling at bit as he sipped his water. "I'll admit, it's been a long time since I've had a good cup of tea."

"It seems to be a trend among those brought here. The administrators have assured us the process is random, but I have yet to meet anyone who has led a life that could be considered 'normal'." Perhaps an indirect admittance that her own life has not been filled with pleasant experiences, perhaps a mere observation of the Tower populace. It all depends on how Neal reads it. She will just sip idly at her own drink.

"Doesn't seem too random to me," Neal agreed. "Something tells me that they're not trying to save Gordie the blacksmith or Ted the accountant." There were too many people for him to meet everyone in the tower, but he had seen his fair share of people who clearly had combat experience of some description. "Seems to me that they're cherry-picking the people they want to arrive."

"It would not be entirely implausible to suspect so. Ruana is... capricious, at best." Something in her tone darkens as she speaks of the head administrator. Most of the Tower populace focuses their anger and hatred on Jason, but in her mind, he is a symptom of a greater problem - one that will not be cured until Ruana herself is removed from power. "Most of the time, she presents herself like a child wishing to be entertained, only her games are cruel and deadly."

Of course, how much she understands the pain and suffering she causes is up for debate in the wake of Dax's murder.

Ruana. He doesn't know much about her, just that she murdered Dax. He didn't know Dax, the name didn't mean anything to him, but it didn't take a genius to see that Dax was respected amongst the people who had been here longer than him. "She's mentally a child?" he asked, frowning. He was familiar enough with magic to know that it was probably possible for some sort of strange arrested development to happen.

Whether or not it was actually magic was not something he wanted to speculate on. "Maybe she ages weirdly." Or maybe she was just crazy. Not like he could know. He had so far been spared one of her months.

"Oh, she most certainly does," she answers, confirming his theory quickly. Her being insane is definitely a possibility, but this is one of the few things she does know about the mysterious female administrator. "Several sources have told me that she is a thousand years old, at least. Similarly, the child, Zo, is said to be only as old as the 'rescue mission' they are running. About two years next month, if I have heard correctly."

Knowing does not necessarily mean understanding, however. She frowns into her drink, in thought. "I cannot say I know how their race ages, though, despite this information. It was once said that their lifespans are based on their 'psionic ability,' but..."

That doesn't explain much.

"A thousand years?" Neal echoed, his voice cracking slightly. Such an age length wasn't something he could comprehend, even though he was in actually much older than he looked at first glance. "Damn," he muttered, shifting uncomfortably. It wasn't like he had any way of knowing what Ruana looked like, though he had a feeling she wouldn't look like someone who was over one thousand years old.

"Psionics? Sorry, I'm not familiar with what that is."

Zelda nods, the corners of her lips turning down into an uncertain frown at his clear shock and discomfort. Had she said too much too soon? It grew harder to tell how much was too much with each passing month.

But nevermind her own doubts - there's more explaining to do. At his question, she opens her mouth, then closes it, apparently unsatisfied with the initial analogy that came to mind. Then she tries again, only to stop herself once more with the same result. Psionics, psionics... how to explain something you yourself don't understand?

"It is, ah..." she starts, hesitance clear in her voice and expression. "I do not know what it is precisely, but in general terms it is the name they give their supernatural abilities."

He tried to shake off the idea of someone living that long. Surely that wasn't a natural life span, right? It wasn't like Ruana was frozen in time, right? There had to be some other explanation to it, but what, he couldn't even begin to guess. Not that he wanted to, in any case.

"Strange name for it," Neal said thoughtfully, rubbing at his head. If it had a name like that, it was clearly not magic. Something else, then. "I bet you couldn't find any information on their powers here in the tower, huh?"

Silly, Neal. You're thinking about things with a normal mindset when these are anything but normal circumstances. Zelda personally has given up on considering anything about the administrators 'natural.'

"Of course not. We only got a name for them about five months ago," she laments, resting her chin on her fist. So much time to pass for so little information. "The only hints we receive are when they use those powers, which are generally not times when people are thinking very rationally."

Considering more often than not they are the ones on the receiving end of those powers. She stares off into the distance in thought for a moment before continuing.

"... Though, I suppose there could be something to be said about etymology," she muses. "Psionic sounds a bit like psychic and psychology, which have to do with the mind..."

Well, given that Neal's thought process comes from being the son of the Dark One and kidnapped by Peter Pan, he probably had a bit more of a stranger idea than most what just exactly was 'natural.' Hearing that the information was relatively recently made him curious. Had an administrator let it slip, then? Or was it intentional?

"So..." Neal began, thoughtful. "You think it's mind powers?" It certainly seemed to be a probability.

She glances back to him at his question, and offers an uncertain shrug in response.

"It is one theory. I would not go touting it as absolute truth, but it is a theory." Sadly, it's hard to support said theories with anything more sound than extrapolation and inferences. But nevermind that - suddenly she's shaking her head, as one would do when trying to shake out an unpleasant thought. "Forgive me, I did not mean to turn your morning meal into an hour of exposition."

Oops.

"Seems a reasonable one," Neal said with a shrug. He might not have heard the term before, but all-powerful being in charge seemed to be reasonable, right? Just because it wasn't called magic didn't mean that it wasn't some sort of weird power.

He smiled, shaking his head. "Nah, that's okay. I'm glad you've cleared some stuff up for me."

Take every moment; you know that you own them

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