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charcubed · 4 years ago

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Frank Hudson, Greta, Margaret, & Mary

(PSA: If you’ve been tagged in this post, it’s because I’m crediting you or linking to a meta you wrote! I particularly linked a lot of things at the end I think could be tangentially related. No pressure to read all of this!)

Please allow me to take you on a journey in which I present a theory:

Mary is Frank Hudson’s daughter from a relationship with another woman, and part of her motivation (as a villain, as Moriarty’s agent/possible successor) is to get revenge on Sherlock for having killed her father all those years ago and ruining the drug cartel empire.

I was calling this a crack theory, but uh, given that I’ve now written thousands of words connecting weird dots, I’m gonna say maybe this is potentially not as far-fetched as I initially thought.

Before Sherlock series 4 came out, we were given this delightful niche little “clue” in a Youtube video on the official channel:

It’s always struck me as odd that this was specifically shown in a video advertising / leading up to series 4... when it seemingly never connected to anything. Why this, of all things?

Let’s review what we know about Mr. Frank Hudson.

• He was sentenced to death in Florida; Sherlock ensured his execution. (ASiP)

• He was executed for double murder and the execution was via lethal injection. He was arrested for “blowing someone’s head off.” (TSoT)

• According to Mrs. Hudson, about their relationship: “It was just a whirlwind thing for us. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I just got sort of swept along. And then we moved to Florida. We had a fantastic time, but of course I didn’t know what he was up to” and “It was purely physical between me and Frank. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.” What Frank was “up to” included a drug cartel and “all the other women.” (TSoT)

• Mrs. Hudson was a typist in Frank’s drug cartel (and an exotic dancer, which is in YouTube videos in-universe). This is also the scene where she’s present to hear enough to figure out that Mary shot Sherlock; in the original script, it’s made obvious that she was eavesdropping even after walking out. (HLV)

• We’re also given repeated reminders in TLD that Mrs. Hudson was/is somewhat of a badass. She tells Sherlock “you’re not my first smackhead, Sherlock Holmes,” and whether or not any of that (the revolver, the kidnapping of Sherlock, the car) is actually literally real, I take it mostly as a blatant reminder that Mrs. Hudson has a past filled with “not good” people.

A lot of this info is given in more comedic moments... but I think because it is repeatedly mentioned with consistent detail, especially largely in season 3 when Mary arrives (partially to mirror John/Mary’s doomed relationship), it shouldn’t be swept aside.

Speaking of Mary, let’s get into it.

In ACD’s The Sign of Four, Mary Morstan’s story centers heavily around the loss of her father. That’s also the story that involves the Agra treasure, and Mary notably receives 6 pearls in the mail as part of the mystery. Keep all of this in mind because it’s going to be relevant as we go.

First, let’s roll all the way back to The Abominable Bride.

(All transcripts I will be quoting are from the inimitable Ariane DeVere.)

Giles, & Morse Hudson

The abominable bride herself–who I trust we all know mirrors Mary at this point lol–stands on the balcony and aims her guns at people on the street while saying “You?” / “You, or me?” One of the people she aims at is this man, who is listed in the credits as Giles. I always found it odd that he was named, so I decided to look him up in relation to Sherlock Holmes.

“Giles” connects to Giles Conover, the criminal in the 1944 Sherlock Holmes movie The Pearl of Death. That movie is loosely based on ACD’s The Adventure of the Six Napoleans. In the movie, Giles (who is not in the ACD story) stole the Borgia Pearl and hid it in a bust of Napoleon. In case there’s any doubt, we can know for a fact that Moffat and Gatiss are familiar with this movie because they referenced it in TGG previously; the Golem assassin is a nod to The Creeper.

So I was like, why that movie specifically? What’s significant, and how would that connect to the bride?

And as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now... they later referenced that movie again in TST. The writers called back to both the ACD story and the 1944 movie, very specifically.

Referenced movie details I noticed in TST include the following: Sherlock calls Lestrade “Giles.” The Borgia Pearl (movie phrasing, as opposed to “the black pearl of the Borgias”) is mentioned multiple times; we’ll go back to that. We are also pointedly told by Ajay that one of the members of AGRA was killed via a broken back, which is how a murder happens in the 1944 movie.

As for TST’s references to the original Napoleon story by ACD... there are many, but there’s one thing they pointedly didn’t reference (unless I missed it) that I find interesting: in the ACD story, 3 of the 6 busts were at the shop of a Morse Hudson. Beppo, the criminal in the story, worked at Morse Hudson’s shop to have access to the locations of those 3 busts. Even in The Six Thatchers version on John’s blog, Beppo is the criminal but Morse Hudson was not mentioned.

So I thought... alright, Morse? What morse code have we seen in the show? Well, there’s UMQRA, from The Hounds of Baskerville.

I poked around and some genius anon on @inevitably-johnlocked‘s blog once said that if you encode UMQRA with HOUND using a vigenere cypher, you get BAKED. Mary bakes her own bread, according to Sherlock’s deductions in TEH. The abominable bride, in the above scene, shoots at/into a bakery.

Edit: @rosie_ww on Twitter aka @silverybees pointed me to this, from THoB:

SHERLOCK: You’ve been to see Mr Chatterjee again.

MRS HUDSON: Pardon?

SHERLOCK: Sandwich shop. That’s a new dress, but there’s flour on the sleeve. You wouldn’t dress like that for baking.

(Friendly reminder that shortly thereafter we find out that Mr. Chatterjee has other women)

Does this morse code / BAKED business necessarily mean anything by itself? No, and of anything in this post, it’s the biggest stretch. But it’s still kind of wild, because let’s recap so far:

• We have Morse Hudson in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, a story which is heavily referenced in TST

• TST heavily connects to Mary / AGRA (we’ll get to how specifically)

• TST also heavily connects to The Pearl of Death, which connects to TAB

• And not only that, but The Pearl of Death connects to the exact scene in TAB where the bride shoots @ Giles and the bread shop. The bread shop could connect to the UMQRA morse code in the show... meaning “Morse” (code, and therefore Hudson) could then connect to Mary.

Morse Hudson -> The Six Napoleons -> TST -> The Pearl of Death (“Giles” etc.) -> TAB (“Giles”) -> Mary, the bride

Oh what a tangled web we weave. That’s a Hudson to Mary.

But let’s keep going. Better stuff to come.

The Black Pearl of the Borgias In TST

Let’s play the game of following the trail of the Black Pearl. Shout out to @miadifferent and @impossibleleaf, because their combo post here I came across was very helpful for showing me the best way to write this out to make it easily understandable. I will be quoting / paraphrasing them below!

The first time we hear about the Pearl, it’s from Mycroft, who connects it to Moriarty’s final activities:

MYCROFT: In the last year of his life, James Moriarty was involved with four political assassinations over 70 assorted robberies and terrorist attacks, including a chemical weapons factory in North Korea and had latterly shown some interest in tracking down the Black Pearl of the Borgias, which is still missing by the way, in case you feel like applying yourself to something practical.

We also learn that the Pearl is somehow connected to London.

HOPKINS: Interpol think, the case of the Borgia Pearl trail leads back to London, so..

So we have Moriarty -> Black Pearl -> London...

And next up, there’s Sherlock’s “fake” deduction about Greta Bengtsdotter (who has always very obviously made us all think about Mary.)

SHERLOCK: Your wife is a spy. That’s right. Her real name is Greta Bengtsdotter. Swedish by birth and probably the most dangerous spy in the world. She’s been operating deep undercover for the past four years now as your wife for one reason only: to get near the American embassy which is across the road from your flat. Tomorrow the U.S. president will be at the embassy as part of an official state visit. As the president greets members of staff, Greta Bengtsdotter, disguised as a twenty-two stone cleaner, will inject the president in the back of the neck with a dangerous new drug hidden inside a secret compartment insider her padded armpit. This drug will then render the president entirely susceptible to the will of their new master, none other than James Moriarty. Moriarty will then use the president as a pawn to destabilize the United Nations General Assembly which is due to vote on a nuclear non-proliferation treaty tipping the balance in favour of a first strike policy against Russia. This chain of events will then prove unstoppable thus precipitating World War 3.

The name “Greta” is derived from the name Margareta, which comes from the Greek word margarites. It means pearl. Further versions of this name are Margarita / Margaret / Maggie.

Thus, we add her in: Moriarty -> Greta -> Black Pearl -> London

So when Sherlock finds the AGRA stick in the busts of Margaret Thatcher, he says to Mary...

SHERLOCK: I was so convinced it was Moriarty, I couldn’t see what was right under my nose. I expected a pearl.

Sherlock expected to find a pearl (Greta / a spy), but instead he found AGRA/Mary’s identity. He actually found what he was looking for, but he just didn’t recognize it.

And it actually still makes sense:

Margaret Thatcher’s bust -> Black Pearl -> Greta (“pearl”, spy) -> Mary (spy) -> AGRA memory stick

That’s how it went in the plot. It’s a subconscious connection.

So what’s ACD have to say about all that then?

This is the point where I remind you...

So all of this does have connections back to ACD canon; who is surprised?

But what do we know about Mary’s past from the show’s canon in His Last Vow? Let’s look at some other reminders.

SHERLOCK: By your skill set, you are – or were – an intelligence agent. Your accent is currently English but I suspect you are not. You’re on the run from something; you’ve used your skills to disappear; Magnussen knows your secret, which is why you were going to kill him; and I assume you befriended Janine in order to get close to him.

MAGNUSSEN: All those wet jobs for the CIA. Ooh! She’s gone a bit... freelance now. Bad girl.

Mary’s not English; she could be Swedish, she could be American, but regardless–Sherlock deduced she’s a linguist in TEH. And either way, she’s worked for America.

Americans crop up a weird amount in BBC Sherlock (and ACD canon too really), and usually in negative contexts. I just want to highlight one American connection from The Abominable Bride, about Emilia Ricoletti:

SHERLOCK: So she decided to make her death count. She was already familiar with the secret societies of America and was able to draw on their methods of fear and intimidation to publicly – very publicly – confront Sir Eustace Carmichael with the sins of his past.

HOOPER: He knew her out in the States. Promised her everything... marriage, position – and then he had his way with her and threw her over, left her abandoned and penniless.

Also, where was it that Mr. Hudson had his drug cartel? Oh yeah. Florida.

We’ll go back to that.

More Margarets In BBC Sherlock

So we’ve officially got one connection where Margaret relates to Mary. TST makes that pretty clear.

Now, where else have we encountered the name Margaret in the show?

Three places (at least, that I’ve caught):

1. A Study In Pink.

The first victim of Jeff Hope the serial killer is Sir Jeffrey Patterson. He was having an affair with his personal assistant Helen, despite being married to his wife Margaret Patterson.

It’s a well-known fact in this fandom that the victims in ASiP are considered mirrors for John Watson, highlighting things that would lead to his own unhappiness/death–possibly even by suicide. (TJLCE video) So, let’s say Jeffrey Patterson is a mirror for John.

Helen the personal assistant (who says “I love you”) is, perhaps, a mirror for Sherlock. She’s wearing a deep purple shirt.

Does that connect Margaret Patterson, who insists her husband was happy, to Mary?

MARGARET PATTERSON: My husband was a happy man who lived life to the full. He loved his family and his work – and that he should have taken his own life in this way is a mystery and a shock to all who knew him.

[looks at John’s unhappiness in HLV after a month of marriage, looks at series 4 theories about John faking his suicide / trying to commit suicide, laughs nervously]

Well. Moving on.

2. The Hounds of Baskerville.

Project HOUND was a CIA Classified / American project that Major Barrymore was involved in. The Major is apparently a fan of Margaret Thatcher, and the password to his laptop is Maggie. Sherlock types “Margare” then hesitantly backtracks and writes Maggie and it works. It’s worth noting that in the script it was drafted to just be Margaret.

3. The Sign of Three.

MRS. HUDSON: My best friend, Margaret – she was my chief bridesmaid. We were going to be best friends forever, we always said that; but I hardly saw her after that. [...] She cried the whole day, saying, “Ooh, it’s the end of an era.” She was probably right, really. I remember she left early. I mean, who leaves a wedding early?

So in BBC Sherlock, the name Margaret is connected to...

• The Margaret Thatcher busts in The Six Thatchers, which connects to Mary/AGRA/pearls/Greta the Swedish spy

• Margaret Patterson, the wife of a mirror for John who was the victim of murder that masqueraded as suicide. This Margaret insists that the John mirror was happy in their marriage, but the John mirror was having an affair with a Sherlock mirror

• Project HOUND, of the CIA. I find this exceedingly interesting because the name "Margaret” has connections to Moriarty/Mary, and this could mean it’s safe to guess that this case is/was connected to the wider Moriarty web. We see Sherlock hallucinate Moriarty when drugged by the fog, sure, but otherwise Moriarty’s handiwork supposedly isn’t involved in this case... but maybe it was indirectly, by Mary in the CIA. Just ruminating.

• Margaret was Mrs. Hudson’s best friend, who left the wedding early when Mrs. Hudson and Frank got married

Re: that last bullet point, here is what I am suggesting as a possibility: Margaret was one of Mr. Hudson’s “other women.” Margaret left the wedding early because she was sad about the marriage, obviously, but maybe she wasn’t in love with Mrs. H like we would naturally assume (per Sherlock leaving the wedding early because he loves John). Maybe Margaret was in love with Mr. Hudson.

Maybe Mary is the daughter of Margaret and Mr. Hudson, and (as previously stated) she’s motivated to get revenge on Sherlock for killing her father and ruining the drug cartel empire. Who knows what would’ve happened to her mother Margaret, in that case, too.

This is speculation, of course, yes. Yet [waves to all the ridiculous web of connections I’ve delved deeply into, and the Frank Hudson hangman] can you blame me?

But, maybe you’re wondering... why would I think she’s the daughter of a Hudson specifically, even aside from all this Margaret stuff?

Well.

Hudsons In ACD Canon

Where is the name “Hudson” used in ACD canon, other than for Mrs. Hudson?

Three places (that I’ve caught; my ACD canon knowledge is limited):

• Morse Hudson in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, as discussed above; not mentioned in BBC Sherlock canon for some reason, yet strongly tied to the story that inspired TST.

• A name drop of “Hudson” in The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips.

Quick run-down of some aspects of this case: the client, John Openshaw, asks Holmes for help because a series of mysterious letters seems to be connected with the recent suspicious deaths of his uncle Elias and his father Joseph. The letters included 5 orange pips, and KKK on the envelope. When his uncle received his letter, he burnt a bunch of secret personal papers. One paper survived; it’s on that paper that we see Hudson’s name, associated with the KKK, and otherwise oddly unrelated to the case.

Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper, which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a book. It was headed, “March, 1869,” and beneath were the following enigmatical notices:

“4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.

“7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain of St. Augustine.

“9th. McCauley cleared.

“10th. John Swain cleared.

“12th. Visited Paramore. All well.”

Here are other ~features of interest~ in this case to me: Openshaw’s uncle Elias was a planter in Florida for many years. Florida is mentioned by Holmes as a “notable” state where the KKK formed a branch; the others are Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, and Georgia (hello to Tbilisi, Georgia being in TST seemingly at random). It is also mentioned that the fear of someone or something is what drove Elias from America to England. There’s also a very random name drop of “Mary” in this story that doesn’t relate to the case, told as part of Openshaw’s story, in which I can only assume Mary was a maid?

OPENSHAW, QUOTING UNCLE ELIAS: “They may do what they like, but I’ll checkmate them still,’ said he with an oath. ‘Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.’

The fact that the name Mary manages to be in this cracks me up.

The orange pips / secret societies in America / etc. all heavily tie into The Abominable Bride, and the women’s hoods were visually reminiscent of the KKK. Sir Eustace’s line in TAB of “Death” (when he receives the pips) is a direct quote from Elias in this story when he receives his pips–and a quote that Mary echoes in TST when she completes Vivian Norbury’s sentence in the aquarium.

VIVIAN NORBURY: I’m just like the merchant in the story. I thought I could outrun the inevitable. I’ve always been looking over my shoulder; always expecting to see the grim figure of...

MARY: Death.

So, in summary we have: a name drop of Hudson in a story that factors in Florida, Georgia, pips, secret societies, the KKK, and even a name drop of Mary.

• Hudson is the criminal in The Adventure of the Gloria Scott.

This case is the one Holmes credits as his first case, and it inspired his future profession. He’s telling Watson the story. It happened in his university days and centers on his friend Victor Trevor (TFP says hi, lmao). More specifically, it centers on Victor Trevor’s father. I won’t go into all the details, and the plot summary on Wikipedia is good if you’re curious, but–

A quick run-down of some ~features of interest~ in this case: Mr. Trevor the elder is being blackmailed by the criminal Hudson because of their old criminal past together with others. Hudson is threatening him with exposure / public shame, and Mr. Trevor is forced to employ him. Victor gets pissed about it and eventually upsets Hudson enough that Hudson leaves in a very “this isn’t over” kind of way. Later, Mr. Trevor dies from a stroke after receiving a letter that threatened him via a skip code. It is a skip code of specifically every third word, beginning with the first.

Full skip code message: "The supply of game for London is going steadily up. Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life."

Decoded message: "The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life."

(It’s not a game anymore...)

Who do we have in show canon who recognizes a skip code on sight of specifically every third word, beginning with the first?

All together now: Mary.

(Bonus points for “Save John Watson” being the phrase Mary says in her creepy posthumous DVDs. Bonus points x2 for the fact that this text was sent by Magnussen, the “Napoleon of blackmail,” to Mary when he was supposedly trying to find Sherlock’s pressure point. But anyway!)

Another feature of interest about the Gloria Scott case: Holmes deduces that Mr. Trevor was once connected to someone with the initials J.A. whom he wanted to forget, guessing it was an old lover. Mr. Trevor momentarily faints in shock. Holmes guessed this based on an old arm tattoo that Mr. Trevor had tried to get rid of, where the initials are blurry. This later turns out to be wrong, because Mr. Trevor’s previous name was James Armitage–J.A.–when he was a criminal, and that is the reason behind the tattoo. (JA? AJ / Ajay? Much to think about)

The J.A. tattoo deduction was referenced in The Six Thatchers, when Sherlock deduces that the client had a Japanese girlfriend he is now indifferent about.

SHERLOCK: You’ve got a Japanese tattoo in the crook of your elbow in the name ‘Akako.’ It’s obvious you’ve tried to have it removed.

KINGSLEY: But surely that means I wanna forget her, not that I’m indifferent.

SHERLOCK: If she’d really hurt your feelings, you would have had the word obliterated, but the first attempt wasn’t successful and you haven’t tried again, so it seems you can live with the slightly blurred memory of Akako, hence the indifference.

I’m bothering to highlight this in TST because after Sherlock explains it, the client remarks upon it being “simple”... and that’s when Sherlock immediately launches into his ~fake~ long-winded deduction about his wife being Greta the spy, as I already talked about above. Wild.

One last fascinating thing about the Gloria Scott: this case is referenced in 2 other ACD stories–The Sussex Vampire (John texting in TST), and The Musgrave Ritual (TFP). Gotta love that.

So, uh, what if Mrs. Hudson’s “case” (getting her husband executed) was one of Sherlock’s “firsts” that inspires him to become a consultive detective full-time? We’re told in ASiP that he ensured Frank Hudson’s execution “a few years back.” The inexactness of that year amount drives me bonkers, but I think it’s potentially plausible.

Short Coda: Ghost Stories...

In Mr. Trevor’s reply to Holmes’ (incorrect) J.A. tattoo deduction, he includes the following line:

“Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.”

Mark Gatiss talked a lot about ghost stories. In the Sherlock Chronicles book (which I own) teasing series 4, he said, “I can certainly give you one word. Ghosts...” and in this interview he said “There’s a conspiracy theory about everything and they’re almost the modern equivalent of ghost stories. And the great thing is, you can have all the tropes of a ghost story. . . There are lots of people in happy marriages who turn out to have terrible secrets or to have done some awful deed in the past that must be paid for in the present. In Doyle’s stories, those are the ghosts you need to worry about.”

And here are the lines we get from Holmes in The Abominable Bride about ghosts (that aren’t literal):

You may, however, rest assured there are no ghosts in this world... Save those we make for ourselves.

We all have a past, Watson. Ghosts – they are the shadows that define our every sunny day. Sir Eustace knows he’s a marked man.

The avenging ghost – a legend to strike terror into the heart of any man with malicious intent; a spectre to stalk those unpunished brutes whose reckoning is long overdue.

While typing, I’ve now galaxy-brained my way to the realization that Mrs. H was canonically an “abominable bride” to Frank Hudson and literally murdered him (with Sherlock’s help), just like the women in the special. She’s also shown as one of the women ignored/disparaged in the special (”I’m your landlady, not a plot device”) but just isn’t shown in the crypt/society. So that’s, uh... interesting.

In (Semi-)Conclusion: A Summary

We have the following significant points at minimum:

• A Frank Hudson clue in a series 4 video

• One reference where Mary is undeniably connected to a Hudson who was a criminal in ACD canon (skip code)

• One ACD Hudson who was heavily connected to The Six Napoleons story, aka The Six Thatchers

• One ACD Hudson name-dropped in a story that heavily connects to The Abominable Bride, and Florida

• A bizarre pile of evidence that all Margaret mentions in the show could relate back to Mary the ex-CIA spy, in some way or another

• A Margaret connected to Mrs. Hudson who could’ve been in love with Frank Hudson (in Florida)

• The overall theme of s4 being ghosts from past deeds and un(happy) marriages coming to haunt people. And lest we forget, “ghost” Mary literally haunts Sherlock and John after her “death.”

Does that cover it? I feel like that covers it.

Of course, I absolutely could be reading into a ton of things that are unrelated, but... Who is to say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Random Related Stuff

Not required reading, but while poking around, I’ve found other things that could or could not connect to the above theory. I’m just gonna... info dump it right here. It could all be meaningless, it could all connect, it could be unrelated! You decide! Lots of meta links involved below, so credit where credit is due.

• I knew I wasn’t the first to come up with this concept/possibility of Mary being a Hudson. While building this post, I ran a search and came across this old one by @the-7-percent-solution, who posited there’s a letter game at play of AEIOU involving Mary’s monstrous regiment of various characters and connects Amo/Love to Mary. I love this concept, and while I do think there are other elements/aspects in play for the plot besides just this, that post still has pieces that can work nicely; doesn’t matter that it was written before TFP aired.

• Frequently thinking about how Sherlock said “Mrs. Hudson? Leave Baker Street? England would fall,” because what does Mrs. Hudson do in TLD? She leaves Baker Street.

• All of the above cursed elements haunt me. (Arwel’s Instagram post was April of this year.) Note: there’s another tweet Arwel jokingly posted of this photo years ago, but that tweet’s caption was connected to Brexit based on dates / my memory (i.e. “England has fallen”), so I’m not including it lol.

• In TFP, when Mrs. Hudson is vacuuming, she’s listening to Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast.” The lyrics we get are “666, the Number of the Beast. Hell and fire was spawned to be released.” The other time 666 is mentioned was by Mary in TST, in reference to Rosie.

• Mrs. Hudson is in the center of the 221B promo pic for series 4, as noticed by @sherlocks-salty-blog.

• This cursed pic of Mary’s "ring from her past” on top of a series 4, episode 3 script (??) that Amanda took has haunted me since she tweeted it. Mary wears this ring on-screen in TEH, and you can see it when Sherlock deduces her.

• The Gabrielle Ashdown passport (in TST) is from America.

• Janine (who many of us notice is likely involved with Mary / Moriarty of course) often wears pearls, as @sherlockmeta noticed. Mary also wears pearl earrings in series 4 promo shots but never in s4 episodes (that I can find/remember). I also always think that Mary and Mrs. Hudson are dressed very similarly in s4 promo images (see all promos here).

• @raggedyblue discussed how Sherlock’s window deduction in TLD sounds a lot like Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen in 221A, and how a sheet of paper being pinned/folded is an opposite element in ACD’s The Sign of Four. The re-folded paper was a map leading to the AGRA treasure, and Mary found it in her father’s desk. Brilliant catch. Of course, in the show, the paper says Miss Me which is also heavily connected to Mary.

• The mystery of the little girls with blond and braided hair, as compiled by @ebaeschnbliah, is also going to haunt me. I suggest reading the post, but minor summary: during s4 setlock, there was filming with Ben and Mark at Ogmore Castle with a little girl "wearing a skirt or dress, and her hair was blonde and in pigtails,” and she was running circles around Sherlock. There are two separate reports from people who saw this and mentioned it had to do with Mary; at first glance it bears similarities to Eurus scenes we got in TFP, but seems different in description. This also brings to mind the little girl with blonde braided hair in TEH at the bonfire, who notably wears a bright red jacket just like Mary. And there’s also a doll with blond braided pigtails in Magnussen’s mind palace.

• @gosherlocked has posts about “The Children of Sherlock” (part 1)(part 2) that highlight how children are frequently victims in this show. Metaphorically, I find this interesting if Mary plays a role of a “wronged child” avenging her father, regardless of age.

• Let’s talk music in TLD–or at least, one piece of it. When Mrs. Hudson drops the teacup, Mozart’s “Andante From Piano Concerto #21” plays. That specific second movement was used in the 1967 Swedish film Elvira Madigan. Sweden, of course, immediately reminded me of Greta the spy (aka Mary) being Swedish. After I realized this info, I ran a search to see if anyone else had mentioned this movie and I found this post, where @tjlcisthenewsexy and @possiblyimbiassed discussed how it’s a story of 2 doomed lovers who die via suicide-by-revolver. This is significant because Sherlock drops a revolver to catch the tea; death replaced by (gay) love?

• Speaking of Sweden: in The Game Is Now, Sherlock is abroad in Sweden. This is mentioned more than once: first, in this audio message between Sherlock and Mycroft (“Sweden sends its regards.” “It does?” “No, not really.”). This audio message also includes “This is not an international game of sardines.” Fish reference? Aquarium?

The second Sweden mention is visually, in this video. See below. (Also, in both, the characters say “real people,” which I can’t help but feel is a fourth wall break of them being fictional?)

I hate this Sweden stuff specifically. Thank you.

This post is so much longer than I expected it would be, thank you for reading all of this if you did, Johnlock is real, Mary is a villain, etc.

Come yell at me on Twitter @CharCubed!

Also, I made a secret sideblog @frankhudson to just reblog meta or info I might want to be able to find later lmao. Feel free to poke around if you want.

19 notes · View notes

fuckit-hero-of-trains · 5 years ago

Text

Alone Together Ch 5

ao3 link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/22311754/chapters/56421904

Chapter Summary:

The shadowy memory from before surfaces behind his eyes once more and the itching in his brain multiplies ten fold.

The darkness. The fear. The water. That blasted sound.

But he can’t remember.

“I can’t place it,” Twilight says again, feeling helpless. “But I know whatever it is, it isn't good.”

Or: A series of fics centered on Four and his interactions, inside and out.

His heart is pounding.

He can feel his pulse all throughout his body, slamming away in his wrists, pulsing in his throat.

The poor muscle in his chest beats at a rabbit’s pace, its frantic thud thud thud crashing rhythmically into his ribs. Blood roars in his ears, blocking out anything and everything else except for the staccato feedback of his own arteries.

His body feels alive, hair standing on end, fingers shaking as they minutely clench and unclench, his eyes wide, taking in every detail.

The thrill of the hunt.

Yet, despite the coiling of his muscles and the racing of his heart, Twilight’s breaths are slow and controlled. Each lungful is carefully measured, in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Silent. He needs to be silent, lest his quarry detect him.

He takes an excruciatingly slow step forward, his knee almost creaking with the effort of remaining still. Slowly, ever so slowly, he places his foot on the ground before gradually leaning weight onto it.

The dry grass crunches quietly beneath his boot. His prey doesn't seem to notice. Perfect.

Keeping his eyes on the target, Twilight lowers himself into position–one leg braced behind, the other in front– ready to pounce.

His hands feel clammy, but he doesn't dare move to wipe the perspiration away on his tunic or pants.

Gray-blue eyes flick back and forth between booted feet and the prize, calculations running through the farmhand’s head. Distance, power,but not too much power, reaction time; all of it needs to be accounted for.

He’s only got one shot at this.

A controlled breath. Another. And another.

The wind shifts directions, making the speed of Twilight’s heart ratchet up even faster.

It’s now or never.

So, heart singing, thoughts racing, and blood turning icy in his stomach, the Hero of Twilight lunges forward.

He lands hard on his elbows and stomach, his leather arm guards clacking unhappily against the ground as his full weight bears down on the light armor. The air in his lungs wheezes out from between his lips at the force of the fall and he can feel mud seeping into the stomach of his tunic. Painful tingles race up one of his arms; he must have hit his funny bone.

But he doesn't let any of that phase him, a triumphant grin spreading over his face

Extended out in front of his head, his arms lay outstretched in the mud. A faint glowing light seeps from between his lightly clasped fingers. A slight tingling sensation tickles against his palm as a too small body scuttles around, confirming his catch.

Gotcha!

“Are you done making a fool of yourself over there?” calls a flat voice. Mocking. Legend.

Twilight ignores him, the joy of having finally caught the sparkling bug too warm in his chest for someone to rain on that easily.

Carefully, using his elbows, Twilight slowly levers himself onto his knees and then leans back onto his feet, bug still held safely within softly cupped hands. He turns back to the others, a grin on his face.

A little ways back, Wild and Wind erupt into whoops of success at Twilight’s catch.

Wind had been the one to spot the little insect, and though Twilight had insisted that the two of them stay back while he caught it–even with the Sheikah Armor on and Wind’s supposed stealth experience, the two together were incapable of sneaking up on a deaf bat–they were very excited about the positive result.

Past the two celebrating blondes, resting in the shade of a large, oak tree, Legend and Warriors look on in unimpressed silence and mild interest respectively.

Behind them, Sky is leaned up against the side of the oak, head thrown back against the bark in the throes of a much needed midday nap. Next to the Chosen Hero, Time is in a similar state, legs stretched out, arms crossed, and chin to chest, breathing slowly.

He had said he was just going to ‘rest his eyes’ but Twilight knew that was old man speak for taking a quick five minute nap. Rusl always said the same thing after a good hunt, settling down on the couch one second, and out like a light the next.

Typical.

Beside the two napping heroes, Four and Hyrule sit together, the former with his nose in a book while the latter sits straight spined, eyes closed. Meditating, Hyrule had called it.

“Wild,” Twilight calls, striding back toward the shade of the tree, toward the other heroes. “Can you grab the cloth covered bottle from my bag?”

The teen nods, quickly scurrying to the leather satchel, rustling through it for a moment, before making a soft sound of success as he pulls the glass bottle out of its confines. Container in hand, the scarred hero hurries back over, unscrewing the metal clasp as he walks and removing the hole punched cloth top as he holds the bottle under Twilight’s still cupped hands.

Out of the corner of his eye, Twilight sees Wind edge closer to the two of them, peering into the bottle as the older hero carefully opens up his fingers, allowing his prize to drop into the leaf filled glass. Then, as soon as he’s sure the creature is safely within, the farmhand pulls the cloth back over the lid and screws the metal band back into place.

He takes the bottle from Wild’s hand, careful not to jostle it too much, and holds it in a single palm, letting the two teens look into the container without any obstructions.

Within, a golden grasshopper sits, using one extremely long leg to swipe at its antennae, a faint orange-ish pink glow emanating from it’s tiny body.

“Cool!” Wind breathes, big round eyes glinting in the soft light.

“What kinda potion are you gonna brew with it?” Wild asks, face just as awed as the sailor’s

Both Twilight and Wind turn toward the champion, eyebrows furrowed in confusion and–at least in Twilight’s case– a mighty helping of genuine concern.

“What?” the farmhand sputters.

“C’mon, don’t hold out on me,” Wild says, his smile growing. “That looks like a pretty rare bug. I bet you could brew something really powerful with it!” He peers back into the side of the bottle, giving the grasshopper a considering look. “A Hearty elixir maybe based on the glow? Or an Energizing one ‘cause it's a grasshopper?”

Twilight pulls the jar close to his chest, away from Wild’s line of sight.

“I’m not using it in a potion!” he replies, voice going a little high with indignation.

“Then why didyou catch it?” Warriors asks, butting into their conversation with all the grace of an Ordonian goat. Which is to say, none.

“Don’t squash our Twilight’s dreams of being an etymologist, Warriors,” Legend cuts in before Twilight can justify himself. “So what if he wants to look at bugs when he grows up all big and strong? It's his passion,” he says, voice scolding but words snarky and playful.

Twilight rolls his eyes.

“I believe the word you’re looking for, Legend, is entomologist,” Four interjects without looking up from his book. “Entomology is the study of bugs. Etymology is the study of the history and development of words.”

“I’m assuming you study the latter, then,” Legend replies with a huff.

Four doesn’t respond, though he does turn another page in his book probably more loudly than is strictly necessary. Next to him, one of Hyrule’s closed eyes twitches, a smile pulling at his face, concentration broken.

“I caught it,” Twilight starts, forcing the conversation back on track, “because a friend of mine in Castle Town runs an insect conservation project. Golden bugs like these are becoming more and more rare throughout Hyrule, so I’ve been catching male and female pairs for her to take care of and breed.”

Wind makes a face at that.

“While I’m not great at telling the difference,” Twilight continues, regardless of the younger’s reaction, “I’m pretty sure this one is a female. Hopefully I can get her to my friend before we switch again.”

“Good,” Warriors says with a sage nod, “It’s not polite to keep a lady waiting. Especially one with such a powerful parasol.”

Twilight feels his face screw up in confusion, staring at the scarf wearing hero for a second. How Warriors knew Agatha was female, let alone carried a parasol everywhere she went was beyond him.

Warriors was just... like that sometimes.

The captain just seemed toknowabout some of their worlds, the knowledge rolling of the Pretty Boy’s tongue like it was no big whoop to have intimate knowledge off vastly different locations and time periods.

What made it even weirder was the type of information the soldier knew. Not big historical events or even exaggerated, folktale accounts. No. What Warriors knew of their worlds was often extremely niche, utterly unimportant little details. Stuff he couldn't just read in a history textbook.

It was mind boggling.

Twilight stares at the other a moment longer, and when Warriors doesn't elaborate or explain– in fact he gives Twilight a shit eating grin that tells the pelt wearing hero that the captain knows exactly what he's doing– lets the line of thought drop with a sigh.

A problem better left for another day.

A loud, long inhale sends all of the heroes’ eyes back toward the trunk of the oak tree.

Apparently, their conversation had been loud enough to rouse Time, whose chin rises from his chest as he blinks the last of the post nap sand from his eye.

As the Old Man stands and stretches, Twilight stows the jar back inside his bag, careful to put the glass container in the most secure part of his leather satchel before turning to his mentor.

With a nod and a significant look from their leader, the others begin to pack up their gear.

Their rest is over.

“You said the town was close?” Time asks, stepping closer to Twilight, an attempt to give themselves the air of privacy despite the fact that Twilight knows the others are listening in, if their perked ears are any indication.

“We’re not far from Kakariko now,” Twilight replies with a nod. “Just a little further south. The canyon should be coming into view soon.”

“Good. And you think this shamin…” Time pauses, the name obviously escaping him.

“Renado,” Twilight prompts with a quirk of his lips. “Memory going already, Old Man?”

Time waves him away, a glare without heat lighting up one eye.

“You think Renado may have some information for us?”

“If not him, then the Resistance might have something.”

The older hero wrinkles his nose at the name of the group.

“I'll explain later,” Twilight assures. “They’re harmless, but they do have a good network of information. If something is happening in this Hyrule, they’ll know about it.”

“Then we should get moving,” Time says with a decisive nod. And then, with a faint quirk to his lips, “But first, we need to decide who’s going to wake up The Beast.”

Six pairs of interested ears suddenly lower, no longer so intent on the conversation anymore.

The sound of packing gets louder.

Twilight can’t help himself. He laughs.

…

Hyrule ends up drawing the short stick this time, rousing the very groggy Sky with minimal injury, much to everyone else’s awe and envy. Apparently, damn near everyone had a soft spot for the traveling hero, including the infamously grouchy ‘Post Nap Sky.’

With that debacle taken care of, the group gets back on the road, making their way over the rolling green hills of East Hyrule Field.

It's a beautiful day Twilight notes with a growing lightness in his chest.

The sky is a bright, cornflower blue interspaced with fluffy, white clouds. The sun hangs high above their heads providing ample warmth while a faint breeze rolls over the hills, keeping the group of heroes from overheating.

The air is fresh and clean, smelling of grass and dirt, with the faintest promise of a storm despite the perfect weather.

Perhaps only Twilight can pick up on the last bit, but he doesn't mind the extra information. It’s saved his ass more than once.

Though, it wasn't always such an accessible tool in his wheelhouse, so to speak.

When he first transformed back into a Hylian after his involuntary stint as a wolf, the world was… off. Off center, off kilter, just plain off.

The Faron Woods, a place he had been traveling to, exploring, playing in all his life, was transformed into a foreign sensory deathtrap. The smell of greenery and dirt and warm water was so cloying, the farmhand could have sworn he was drowning in swamp sludge. Around him, birds were chattering, the wind was blowing, seemingly shifting through every single leaf in the forest as the deku babas snapped their jaws in sickening ragtime, a deafening cacophony.

It was...overwhelming. Maybe even more so than the massive, translucent light spirit in the shape of a monkey telling he was the hero of destiny.

Overtime, Twilight got a handle on his senses until they simply edged at his consciousness, hints of something that was more than his hylian senses could ever detect before, but definitely duller than the sharp accuracy he could achieve as a canine

Now, most of the time these little snippets of his wolf senses were helpful, like when they allowed him to see better than the others at night, providing better security.

Other times, they were annoying, like when Warriors had found some shitty cologne at a market and wore it for three days straight before Twilight could stealthily steal the bottle and throw it down the nearest ravine.

Speaking of ravines...

“Wild, Four, look how deep this canyon is!” Hyrule says, scurrying close to the edge of the cliff, gazing down into its depths with a look that borders on childlike wonder.

Wild jogs up next to the other teen and leans precariously over the lip of the canyon. He lets out an appreciative whistle at the sight, grinning as the sound echoes back seconds later

With a quick hand, Wild swipes his Sheikah Slate from his belt and with a click, a glowing blue bomb materializes in his other hand. “Let's see how long it takes this thing to hit the ground!” he says with a grin.

“Please back away from the edge,” Four huffs before Twilight can get the chance to do so, the smithy standing with his hands on his hips at least five feet back from where the others are. “You don't know how stable that ground is.”

Twilight feels his lips tick upward at smaller teen’s words.

At least one of their younger members has some common sense.

Hyrule has the decency to look a little sheepish as he takes a step away from the canyon. Wild, meanwhile, gives Four a flat look, obviously displeased that, for once, someone other than Twilight is raining on his parade.

“C’mon Smithy, where’s your sense of adventure?” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Aren’t we supposed to do stuff like this? Hero of Courage and all that?”

Four’s right eye twitches minutely, the blue sky reflected in its depths.

“I don't need the Triforce of Wisdom to know that what you’re doing is unnecessarily reckless. We’re the Hero of Courage, not the Hero of Dying Stupid Deaths.”

Wild rolls his eyes, but thankfully steps away from the edge as well, spherical bomb flashing back into non-existence as he does.

“Buzzkill,” the champion mutters as he stalks grumpily over to Twilight’s side.

As soon as he’s in range, the pelt wearing hero throws an arm around his neck, dragging him into a headlock, successfully pulling Wild even farther away from the canyon. Twilight hauls the struggling teen forward, back on the path toward Kakariko.

“Why don’t I tell you guys about that canyon as we walk?” Twilight offers placatingly once he's done grinding a fist into the top of the champion’s head.

Hyrule nods emphatically at the offer, big hazel eyes bright with curiosity. Wild, meanwhile, places his hands on Twilight’s back and heaves, wrenching his head from the rancher’s grip. Free once more, the champion mirrors the traveling hero’s look of eagerness, eyes bright, hair completely mussed.

Twilight laughs at their excited faces and continues to walk forward, forcing the boys to catch up if they want to hear his tales.

They do have a schedule to keep, after all.

Wild quickly falls into step on the Ordonian’s left while Hyrule slots into place on his right as they head toward the canyon that will lead them to Kakariko. Four takes up a position on Hyrule’s other side, not as entranced as the other two, but eager enough for information to include himself as well.

Once he's got all eyes on him, Twilight launches into a brief lecture of the formation of the canyon, starting with an old folktale before reciting Rusl’s old words about sandstone and tributary rivers to Lake Hylia.

As the sentences flow from his mouth on auto pilot– an explanation given to him years ago that he repeated for the kids, for Iliya, for her– Twilight feels himself smile.

Wild drinks in Twilight’s words like he’s dying of thirst. The champion had been so excited when the Ordonian had announced that they were in his Hyrule, eyes immediately flashing every which direction to catch anything and everything.

“You’ve seen all of my home,” Wild had said, an excited smile in place. “Now I get to see all of yours!”

Hyrule looks equally happy at the knowledge. Twilight doesn't know as much about the brunette teen as he does about Wild, but one thing the pelt wearing hero can say for certain is that their senses of adventure were the same.

From what Twilight had heard of Legend’s scoldings sessions with the traveling hero whenever the younger would get lost, the teen always wanted to see what was just over the crest of the next hill. Wild was much the same, climbing to insane heights, spotting something in the distance, and then running–or gliding– headfirst into it, regardless of whatever task or job he had been working toward before.

It was an admirable trait, their curiosity. They had a thirst for knowledge, for the unknown, for adventure. It was endearing, if not extremely annoying for those trying to keep track of the teens.

“There’s actually an attraction that runs in the river down there,” Twilight continues, his words suddenly catching back up to him.

“What kind of attraction?” Hyrule asks, brows furrowed and head tilted, like he can’t even fathom the concept.

Twilight elbows Wild lightly, a soft laugh jumping from his lips.

“One that I’m sure our Champion here would love,” he replies. “It’s called Iza’s Rapid Ride. The goal is to use bomb arrows to destroy as many targets as possible while steering a canoe down a series of rapids.”

“That sounds awesome,” Wild and– to Twilight’s extreme surprise– Four say at the same time. All three of them turn to their smallest companion, faces colored with varying shades of disbelief.

Four, in turn, looks just as surprised at what slipped out of his mouth as they do. His eyes blink rapidly in confusion, the light catching them differently every other second until Twilight isn’t even sure what color the younger's eyes actually are.

The smithy’s head gives a slight shake and then angles downward, his jaw clenching and unclenching, chewing on unspoken words.

“If not extremely dangerous,” Four adds finally, looking uncomfortable as he stares at his shuffling feet.

Wild accepts the other’s words easily enough, quickly moving on to detailing what his strategy for such an attraction would be to Hyrule.

For his part, the traveling hero lets his eyes linger on Four a second longer before he is drawn into Wild’s crazy plan of using his slate to freeze the boat in time in the river so I can hit all the targets, Wild that's cheating, He didn’t say I couldn't, I mean yeah but I don't think...

Twilight though… Twilight eyes the smallest hero as they continue their trek.

The boy is silent once again, gaze locked on his feet as his hair hangs down around his face, a golden curtain blocking out the rest of the world.

To Twilight, it is a painfully familiar sight.

Colin does the same thing whenever he feels he has said something the other kids wont like.

Sometimes, it surprises Twilight how much of Colin he could see in Four.

Maybe it was just the hair and the big round eyes, but the Ordonian hero couldn’t help but draw parallels between the two.

Like the timid boy, Four often went with the flow of the other heroes, tagging along behind their more outgoing and outspoken party members, a mirror of Colin’s relationship with the other Ordonian children.

That wasn't to say Four was a pushover; the teen was confident in himself and his abilities, the little hero’s skill with a blade unquestionable and his discipline with the hammer and tongs a marvel. He was more than willing to speak his mind or outright call out dumb ideas if he saw them– case in point, earlier– but more often than not, the smithy was a passive figure in their menagerie of big personalities. Never the one to initiate conversation.

However, while he was never the one to start a dialogue, Four was always open and willing to listen to anyone and everyone who talked to him, just like Colin. He was attentive, seemingly going through each word someone said with a fine toothed comb, teasing out the implications of every syllable, just like Colin

Hylia, he was even the same size as Colin now that the boy had gone through a bit of a growth spurt. Slap a green headband on the Ordonian boy, and from behind, you might even be able to mistake one for the other.

Not to mention–

The resonant blast of a horn yanks Twilight from his thoughts and back into his body abruptly.

The sound echoes across the field, low and growling and Twilight’s feet freeze underneath him as his head whips back and forth. The farmhand can feel the three teens next to him sending him quizzical looks as his search becomes more and more frantic, but he ignores them, anxiety pumping through his veins, clawing at his intestines.

That noise. The horn. It’s sofamiliar, but his memory is foggy in his mind. Smokey and full of shadow, no definite shapes or colors.

And yet, that blaring noise pierces through the impenetrable fuzz, the only part of the recollection that is clear to him.

He remembers…

He remembers...

He remembers darkness. He remembers fear. Fear and water. Water on his face, water up his nose and water in his lungs. He remembers a pain in his head and that damned sound echoing in his ears, making his skull feel like it was shattering slowly.

He remembers… he remembers...

“In coming!” shouts a voice from behind them.

The half formed memory fades back into shadow as Twilight whirls around toward the others, his sword already in hand. The three teens beside the farmhand mirror him, falling into battle stances of their own.

Black bodies drop from the sky, the sound of birdlike screeches wrenching through the air and drowning out the last echoes of the horn as seven pairs of leathery wings flap in deafening unison. Twilight barely manages to bring his blade up fast enough to block a pair of claws from scoring across his face.

“Kargarocs!” he shouts, heaving his sword from the screaming beast’s grasp, dealing a slash to its legs.

The winged monster lets out a squawk of protest as it flaps its wings, desperate to pull itself out of range of Twilight’s sword.

With three powerful wing beats, the Kargaroc successfully launches itself into the air. It wheels for a moment, simply circling him like a vulture would, before it folds its wings in and dives, talons outstretched

“Oh no you don’t!” Wild hisses next to Twilight, bow out and an ice arrow knocked in the string. With a twang, the arrow flies, singing through the air for a moment before it strikes home; freezing the left wing of the Kargaroc.

The beast lets out a scream of pain as it spirals to the ground, thrown off course by the weight of the ice. It slams into the dirt with a sickening crunch, its voice dying out as it erupts into black and orange smoke.

Another screech from Twilight’s left has his head whipping to the side in time to catch another Kargaroc swooping toward Wild’s back with talons outstretched.

An odd whiffling sound passes by Twilight’s ear and suddenly a blur of yellow whips toward the beast, cracking into the head of the bird-like creature, sending it wide of Wild by at least a few feet.

Having hit it’s target, the shape– a boomerang, Twilight notes– arcs back around, flying behind the pelt wearing hero’s head and landing with a smack in Four’s outstretched hand.

“Go help the others,” the teen grits, readying another throw as Hyrule slides into an offensive stance, knees bent, silver blade steady. “We’ve got this one.”

Twilight nods, watching only a moment longer as Four lets the boomerang fly once more. The Kargaroc, having risen back into the air, swerves to avoid it, diving to dodge the whirling wooden weapon. Miraculously, the boomerang follows the bird, forcing the beast lower and lower and lower, straight into the honed point of Hyrule’s sword.

It lets out a screech as the traveling hero’s blade slashes into the soft skin below its wattle.

Right, Twilight thinks, catching Wild’s eyes as they both turn and run toward where the others are. Those two definitely don't need help.

The rest of the heroes, however, do.

In a mass of black wings and talons, five of the flying menaces mob the others, a chaotic flurry of beaks, claws, and swords, all packed together in too small a space for any true combat to break out.

As he runs to their aid, Twilight isn't sure exactly how he's going to attack without accidentally hitting one of the others until...

Suddenly, there is a flash of cobalt fabric and one of the beasts pulls away from the rest, a distinctive scarf caught in its claws.

With two big wingbeats and a yank, Warriors is fished from the mayhem of black bodies, his clear blue eyes fire bright and wild as he claws at the keepsake that is quickly tightening into a vice around his throat.

With another harsh pull, the Kargaroc drags Warriors to his knees a good five feet away from the others and then releases the fabric, diving toward the now prone hero.

Twilight lunges forward, claws punching into his shield rather than through Warriors’ chest. Leathery wings batter the sides of the Ordonian’s head as the Kargaroc struggles against him, desperate for its talons to find their target.

With a grunt of effort, the farmhand manages to shove the squawking monster away, giving Warriors the precious seconds it takes to ready himself.

A woosh of air blasts past their heads, and the creature is back for more, this time swooping low, attempting to stab at their exposed heads with it’s cruelly curved beak.

Warriors fends off the first pass with a wide swipe of his blade, keeping the flying menace from coming within striking distance. Twilight batters away the second attempt, slamming his shield into the beast’s head as it dives.

With an enraged warble, the Kargaroc folds its wings and shoots out its scaled legs, claws clinging to the sides of Twilights shield. It lets out a scream that rings in the farmhand’s ears, too loud, too sharp, and too close as the monster rears back and snaps at him.

A flash of freezing cold air bites at Twilight’s neck, and suddenly, the beak in front of him is encased in ice.

Wild again.

With its head trapped and far heavier than the rest of its body, the Kargoroc drops, releasing the shield, and plummets beak-first into the ground, its wings and feet scrabbling feebly at the ice.

Warriors doesn’t let it struggle for long, plunging his sword into its spine.

“You should really tuck that away during battle,” Twilight says breathlessly, glancing at the scarf trailing behind Warriors as the other stands, pulling his blade from the plume of smoke

“I’m honestly surprised the first thing to go for it was a fucking overgrown bird,” Warriors replies with an huff, adjusting the aformentioned cloth to fit more snugly around his neck.

The crack of a whip snaps through the air, jolting both heroes back into their ready positions.

In the next instant, a body slams into the ground next to Twilight.

Another Kargaroc, this one flailing wildly as it crys bloody murder. A red whip wrapped around the winged beast’s throat making it’s voice come out garbled and pained.

It’s fight halts long enough for beedy, yellow eyes to lock onto the farmhand and suddenly, the creature’s struggles redouble as it fights against it’s bindings, a blood lust that needs to be satisfied gleaming in its gaze.

Before it can pull itself free, a body with a bright blue tunic suddenly throws itself between Twilight and the Kargoroc.

The figure resolves itself into Wind, hefting a hammer that is way too big for the small teen’s hands over one shoulder. With a full bodied motion, the sailor swings the mallet down with enough force to create small shockwaves that jolt up Twilight's legs as he smashes the monster’s skull in.

“Nice one, Sky!” Wind yells as he hoists the mallet back into his arms, eyes already searching for his next target.

The Chosen Hero nods in silent acknowledgment, cracking his whip to free it of the slowly disintegrating body of the Kargaroc. He quickly zeroes in on a target and with another swing of the whip, Sky manages to snare the wing of a second monster.

Monster hooked, the Skyloftian leans back and then pulls with the full strength of both arms, yanking the struggling body to the ground.

Twilight and Warriors both step forward, ready to put the beast out of its misery, but before either can deal the mortal blow, another burst of freezing wind has both heroes stopping short.

Above the struggling Kargaroc, a block of ice condenses from thin air. It grows and grows and grows until a massive, translucent boulder hovers weightless in the air, misting in the noonday sun. It floats for a moment longer before it suddenly plummets to the ground, gravity catching up to it and crushing the beast below its mass.

Behind the now stationary mound of ice, Legend slowly lowers a staff with an angularly cut sapphire on its tip back down to his side. He winks at them, a smug smile pulling at his lips as he stares down Twilight and Warrior’s shocked faces.

“Fucking magic,” Warriors mutters under his breath. Twilight can't help but agree. He was never a fan of the stuff himself.

Twin screeches echo through the air before they are suddenly, and without remorse, cut off.

Turning, Twilight catches the tail end of two puffs of smoke dissipating in the air, Time giving Wild an approving nod as the champion happily flushes at the gesture.

“Sound off!” Time calls as he cranes his neck to spot all of their members.

A chorus of ‘fine’s, ‘here’s, and a particularly snarky ‘present’ respond to his call. No one yells for help or screams for medical attention and slowly, Twilight feels the tension of the battle leave him, his breaths becoming longer and slower as the adrenaline in his veins slowly sputters to a stop.

They group back up, a few sporting minor bruises or a couple of niks here and there, but otherwise, no worse for wear. Hyrule and Legend quickly begin distributing bandages to those with cuts while Wild pulls herbs from his slate. Something to help the pain later, Twilight remembers vaguely.

As the others get themselves patched up, Time strides toward where Twilight and Warriors stand. The Old Man holds out the Biggorn sword for them to inspect.

Orangish-red blood drips down the blade in thick rivets.

“Not infected,” Time says succinctly as he pulls out an old cloth to clean his blade. “Do they usually fight in groups as large as that?”

Twilight shakes his head, confusion bubbling in him.

“The largest group I’ve dealt with before is three.”

Time hums at his words. With a final swipe of the cloth, the sword is freed of the viscera that had been coating it and the older hero sheathes the blade at his side.

“Not infected and yet still acting strangely,” Warriors sumerizes, with a shake of his head.

Both heroes turn to Twilight, questions burning in their eyes.

Unfortunately, the Ordonian hero has none to give.

Except…

“Did you guys hear that horn before they attacked?” Twilight asks, a phantom echo of the sound bouncing around in his skull once more.

Warriors face screws up in confusion, eyes squinted, brows furrowed, and mouth turned down in a befuddled frown. Time, however, straightens.

“What did you hear, Pup?” he asks, single eye flickering over Twilight’s face.

“I...I’m not sure yet,” Twilight admits, a mixture of frustration and shame making his stomach feel full and heavy. Something scratches in the back of his skull. Fear or a warning maybe, but Twilight can’t say for sure. It itches and itches and itches.

The pelt wearing hero kicks a boot into the dirt, his mouth pulling to one side. “I know I’ve heard it before. I just... can’t place it.”

The shadowy memory from before surfaces behind his eyes once more and the itching in his brain multiplies ten fold.

The darkness. The fear. The water. That blasted sound.

But he can’t remember.

A warm hand grips his shoulder and when Twilight looks back up, Time is sending him a look dripping in concern, eye soft as it gazes imploringly at him.

“I can’t place it,” Twilight says again, feeling helpless. “But I know whatever it is, it isn't good.”

…

They enter Kakariko with little fanfare, the good mood from earlier all but dried up after the Kargaroc attack.

Though, Twilight does have to admit, just smelling the dry, dusty air of the village brightens him up a bit, despite the anxiety that still runs rampant through his heart and the itch in the back of his scalp that refuses to abate.

There are more people in Kakariko now than there were when he had first seen the town.

Before, when the skies were a perpetual dreary gray and when the sparks of twilight floated upward through the air like inverse snow, the village had been a literal ghost town, only the spirits of the few survivors left huddled together behind boarded windows and barred doors.

In the years after he had completed his journey, though, Kakariko had flourished. Where once there were empty, dilapidated buildings, now there were homes, freshly painted and open to the streets.

Where there were once quiet, lifeless streets, now there are voices, people, going about their day in the canyon town. Instead of three adults and a handful of scared children, Kakariko is now home to multitudes, families even.

Case in point, Shad and Auru. Though they still met up at Telma’s bar most of the time, the two members of The Resistance now lived in Kakariko permanently, taking up residence in two of the renovated homes.

The Gorons also visited more frequently, their nighttime stalls featuring gems and other Death Mountain goods. Their wears were becoming more popular as word about them spread to the general public.

With the arrival of the Gorons, came trade and cultural exchange. Soon, the old hamlet had become a bit of a tourist destination, an easy way to experience the medicinal and luxurious hot springs of Death Mountain without– well– actually going up Death Mountain.

To accommodate the influx of people, the Malo Mart had expanded as well, the small shop growing to include an extra two rooms and more merchandise than ever before. Barnes Bombs enjoyed a similar increase in customers, though definitely not as extensively as the now chain of shops that Malo ran.

To put it simply, Kakariko was finally a village again.

And thankfully, one with a large and accommodating enough hotel, the Elde Inn, to fit all of them comfortably.

They go three to a room:Twilight with Time and Wild, Warriors with Wind and Sky, and Four with Legend and Hyrule.

After settling into their designated spaces and, in some cases, fighting over beds, they all come together in Time’s room to discuss the game plan for the rest of the evening.

“Time and I will be going to speak to one of my friendsto get information on any strange occurrences,” Twilight starts once everyone is quiet and paying attention, partially in part due to a well placed glare from the Old Man.

“And I think Warriors mentioned wanting to go to the shop to restock?” Twilight continues, sending a questioning glance to the aforementioned Captain. The scarf wearing hero nods in confirmation.

“So, if anyone has any specific requests or would like to go with him to carry supplies, that would be appreciated,” Twilight finishes.

Surprisingly, Legend raises a hand.

“Hyrule and I have been keeping an eye on our medicine stores and there's a couple of things we could probably use,” the pink haired hero says by way of explanation. “Besides,” he continues, serious expression melting away as he smiles charmingly at Warriors, “I don't trust him with my money.”

Warriors adopts a dramatically affronted look, hand to chest and everything as he gasps in shock.

“Sounds good,” Twilight says, agreeing easily enough, despite the dramatic interruption. Warriors turns his open mouthed expression on Twilight, giving him a look that said ‘how dare you not defend my honor?’

Twilight returns Warriors dramatic expression with half lidded eyes, a raised eyebrow, and a faint shrug that hopefully conveyed the sentiment ‘can’t defend what isn’t there’.

Time steps forward, breaking up the unspoken smackdown by giving both heroes a very tired face.

“And you five?” the Old Man asks, looking at the youngest members of their group plus Sky. “Was there something you wanted to do before we meet up for dinner later tonight?”

The five look between themselves, no one willing to speak first, lest they get shot down.

A part of Twilight– the part that itches itches itches at the back of his skull–hopes beyond hope that all of them decide to just stay in the hotel rooms for the rest of the evening.

A much bigger part of him knows that that's never going to happen.

“I wanted to check out the spring at the back of town?” Hyrule says eventually, his voice going high at the end, like it was a question rather than a statement of intent. “It feels like… there’s something special about it.”

Time nods at his words but Twilight feels that scratching, that incessant itch, increase with a vengeance, digging at the back of his head at the teen’s suggestion.

One could say a lot of things about Hyrule, but the traveling hero was definitely observant, especially in things having to do with magic. It figured that Hyrule could detect the spiritual nature of the spring.

It should be one of the safest places in town.

So why does Twilight’s scalp crawl and his guts quake at the idea of any of them going near it?

“I’ll go with you, ‘Rule,” Sky pipes up with an easy smile, jolting Twilight from his revere and unknowingly adding insult to injury. “And then afterwards, maybe we could visit the hot springs upstairs?”

Hyrule nods eagerly and Sky’s smile grows. “Perfect!”

“Wild and I wanna go to the bomb shop!” Wind cuts in with a big grin.

Twilight feels a frown pull at his face, a more concrete concern finding its place in his stomach like a pile of stones.

“Sounds interesting. I’ll tag along as well,” Four interjects and Twilight can’t tell if that soothes his anxieties or ratchets them up further. Obviously, Four had shown interest in bombs earlier that morning, something Twilight couldn't remember him doing before.

The kid was a wild card, someone Twilight couldn't predict. At least he could count Wild's more-erm-pyromaniac persuasions to be consistant in their destructive nature. The pelt wearing hero had no idea what to expect of Four, apparently.

And with Wind egging them on? It was a recipe for disaster. Twilight doesn't need a foggy memory, an itch in his brain, or a sinking feeling in his gut to tell him that much.

Wild, however, let’s his discontent at the smithy’s addition be known immediately with a groan.

“We don’t need a babysitter,” Wild says with a huff, eyeing the shorter hero.

“No one said anything about a babysitter,” Four replies evenly. “The shops I’m interested in aren't open until night, correct?” he asks, directing the question toward Twilight.

The farmhand nods.

Four had been particularly keen on seeing the stalls that were open after dark, excited to see what the Gorons would display that evening at their stands. The smithy was practically giddy to examine and pick apart the innovations a forge heated with lava could produce.

“I’d like something to do in the meantime,” Four continues after Twilight's answer. “And besides,” and here his face remains entirely neutral except for the faintest flicker of a smile and a flash of fire in his eyes, “I like bombs.”

No one really knows what to say to that, so the argument is dropped.

With their plans settled, everyone begins to head out, with Sky and Hyurle leading the charge out the door, talking amicably about the medicinal pros and cons of hot springs. Warriors is quick to follow them, eager to get out to the shops as soon as possible.

As Legend turns to follow the scarf wearing hero, Twilight catches him by the arm.

“Hey,” the Ordonian starts once he’s got the younger’s attention, “If there’s a baby-faced kid working the shop, don’t let him gouge you. The kid’s notorious for hiking up prices for tourists.”

Legend raises an eyebrow but nods at Twilight’s words, acknowledging.

“I’ve haggled with Ravio before,” the pink haired hero says with a little bit of a grimace. “I think we’ll be fine.”

Memories of the aforementioned merchant’s salesman smile, smooth words, and flair for theatrics blink into existence in Twilight’s mind.

“Fair enough,” he admits, releasing the veteran hero’s arm.

Once freed, Legend turns and strides through the doorway, walking towards an impatient looking Warriors who waits with a hand on his hip and a foot tapping on the ground. Legend holds a hand out to the older hero, making grabby motions as he flashes Warriors an expectant look. The two stare at each other for a moment, some kind of silent standoff.

With a sigh, Warriors relents, dropping the wallet full of their pooled spending money in the veteran’s open hand.

And then the two are off. Which just leaves…

“We’ll be back in time for dinner!” Wind assures as he scurries out the door, Wild hot on his heels.

“Don’t blow up the town!” Twilight shouts at their retreating backs.

“No promises!” Wild yells back over his shoulder as he and the younger blonde disappear around the bannister and down the stairs.

Four follows them at a more sedate pace, waving away Twilight’s slightly concerned look as he follows their resident trouble makers out of the hotel.

And… they're gone.

Twilight stares at the stairway for a moment longer. There's something… uncomfortable about watching them disappear one by one out of the hotel, out of his line of sight.

Anxiety drips coldy down his ribs like ice water and settles in his gut and Twilight finds his hand scratching at the back of his scalp idly, trying to assuage the tingling itch that irritates his brain.

A hand lands in the pelted fur sitting on Twilight’s shoulder as Time comes to stand next to him.

“They’ll be fine,” the older assures.

For a moment, Twilight wonders how Time knew what he was thinking, before he lets the thought roll off his back. He’s far past asking Time why he knows anything. The Old Man just knows.

“Besides, how much harm could they do in an afternoon?” his mentor finishes with a smile.

Twilight turns to the other, giving him the driest look the farmhand can muster.

Time lets out an unbecoming snort, hand that was once on the farmhand’s shoulder releasing so Time can give him a fond clap on the back.

“Joking!” the Old Man says, voice warm with laughter. “I’m joking!”

The armor wearing hero takes a second longer to compose himself before staring down at Twilight with a knowing look. “I swear, you’re worse than I am sometimes,” he laughs, with a slight shake of his head.

Twilight winces at that slightly.

He knows he can be a bit… overprotective of the others. But he can’t really stop himself from worrying about them. Whenever any of them got hurt, Twilight felt their wounds like they were his own. When Wild would wake from night terrors, shaking and unable to breathe, Twilight felt breathless with him. When Wind’s frustration at how the others treated him bubbled over into warm tears, Twilight felt his own eyes start to water.

He couldn't help how much he wanted to protect them all.

It ran in his veins, pounded in his bones, howled in his heart.

An instinct, he thinks ruefully.

It was the same mindset Twilight had held for most of his life, ground into his very being from hours of entertaining and watching and protecting the kids of the village. It’s what drove him, trapped in wolf form and in an unknown land, to protect Wild from any and all harm.

It made Twilight want to hide Wind and Hyrule and Sky away from the world, to drag Legend into the confines of safety kicking and screaming. It made him want to take all of the daggers meant for Warriors back, to make sure Time made it back home safe to Malon.

It’s probably what made him see Colin in Four.

It was definitely what made Twilight sure he would use every moment he still had breath in his lungs making sure Wild was happy.

Twilight can’t describe it, the force that wraps his heart in a vice at the thought of any of the others in pain. He can’t describe the growling anger at the presence that forced them to dance in time with its plans.

He wishes he could describe it, pin it down and understand it’s source, but he can't.

He also wishes it wasn’t so active due to the fact that they were in danger all the Hylia damned time.

Twilight blows a sigh through his teeth, pushing a hand through his bangs.

“I’m happy I got to meet them,” Twilight says eventually, still staring at the stairs. With effort, he manages to wrench his gaze away from the steps, turning to look into Time’s too observant eye. With another exhale, Twilight feels something in him deflate, energy suddenly sapped from his very marrow.

His shield arm aches. He wants to sit down. He wants to visit the hot springs or curl up in the warmth of his bed.

He doesn't want to deal with this anymore.

But he will. For them.

“I’m happy I met them, but sometimes I hate that they’re here,” Twilight mutters, letting all the sadness and bitterness that came with failing to protect the others over and over and over again turn his words to daggers. “I hate that they got dragged into this.”

“You make it sound as though this is your fault,” Time says, words gentle but voice pointed, striking straight to the core of Twilight’s thoughts, his feelings. “You make it sound as though you're not a victim here as well.”

The farmhand’s mouth opens but his voice is dead in his throat. He has nothing to say, no response.

“I would tell you not to hold this burden on your shoulders, but I know you will refuse to put it down,” a little laugh, not happy but not angry either. Resigned. “Just one more thing you inherited from me that I wish you hadn't.”

Half of Twilight’s mouth lifts into a sad, partial smile, the same expression pulling onto Time’s face.

Two faces that look too similar to be anything but related, having seen too much of the world.

“The best we can do for now is try to figure out what is going on here,” Time continues, voice stronger, more confident. A pillar that Twilight can lean on if he needs. “The sooner we can do that, the sooner they and this Hyrule will be safe from whatever would wish to do them harm.”

Twilight nods silently at his words.

Right. They have a plan. A plan he can focus on and work towards, steeping himself in preparation rather than peeking around corners for every what ifscenario.

The farmhand takes a deep breath in, allows it to fill his lungs, before he breathes out. He stowes the uncertainty, buries the fear. He allows the anxiety to stay. It isn’t like Twilight can banish it if he tried– and oh, how he's tried– so instead he lets it settle in his gut, familiar if not comfortable.

It will keep him on his toes, if anything.

With another gulp of air, Twilight straightens his spine and squares his shoulders and then leads the way out of the hotel and toward Renado’s house.

…

It is not a far walk to the shaman's place of residence.

From their hotel, it's just a quick walk down the central dirt path of the town.

As they approach the building, Twilight can see Hyrule and Sky a little farther back as they stand in the water of the nearby spring. Both have abandoned their boots, their pants pushed up past their knees to protect the cloth from the warm water as the two heroes wade deeper.

The Skyloftian looks up and flashes them a contented, close mouthed smile and a little wave. Hyrule, meanwhile, seems entranced by the water, eyes locked on the crystalline surface as he searches for something.

As though summoned by his intense gaze, a fairy appears, seemingly materializing from the water itself. Hyrule lets out an amazed laugh as the little pink sprite flutters upward and circles his head once, before stopping right in front of his nose.

Sky laughs delightedly at the sight. Behind him, the farmhand hears Time huff out a content sigh.

They look relaxed in their joy. Happy. Warm.

Twilight isn’t sure why, but it sets his teeth on edge, that anxious tension in his guts roiling as phantom bugs carve lines in the back of his skull.

He's forgetting something. Something really important.

Whatever it is, it makes Twilight want to force them out of the spring right now. It makes him want them to run back to the hotel and lock themselves inside.

In a flash of rose, more faires blink into existence to follow their sister, a whole swarm of them circling around the two heroes, sparkles of strawberry magic swirling them in a mini blizzard.

Their voices rise in surprised joy as Twilight turns from the sight and sets his knuckles against the old wood of Renado’s door. He knocks with three quick whaps of his fist.

Almost as soon as his hand leaves the wood, the door creaks open, a heart shaped face looking up at him shyly through a short curtain of black hair. Dark, round eyes almost immediately light up in recognition and the door is thrown open as the girl behind it dives at him for a hug.

“Link!” she exclaims, her happy voice muffled as she gives him a squeeze around the middle.

“Luda!” Twilight replies a little breathlessly as she squeezes harder. “It’s been a while.”

“Too long,” she says into his chest, tone fond.

She’d gone through a bit of a growth spurt since he had last seen her, Twilight realizes as he gives the young shamin-in-training a light hug in return. Her head reaches his mid chest now when it used to be at his navel. As she steps back to give him a once over–checking for injuries no doubt, Renado taught her well– Twilight wonders if she’ll surpass him in height one day.

If she takes after her father, as Twilight suspects she does, she most certainly will.

Done with her inspection and having seen nothing in need of her immediate attention, Luda steps back through the threshold of the door, holding it open for the two heroes to enter.

“Come in, come in! Dad will be so relieved to see you. Shad and Auru too.”

As they pass through the doorway, Twilight notes how the teenager’s eyes linger on Time, curiosity sparkling in those observant, dark gray eyes of hers.

Entering the room is like walking nose first into a brick wall made out of pure jasmine, pine, and cinnamon. Well, at least it is for Twilight anyway.

It is… potent to say the least, but a familiar potency, one he has gotten used to after spending hours in this very room, comforting Talo and Beth, talking to Colin and Iliya.

As his eyes adjust to the change in lighting, Twilight sees that the house is almost just as he remembers from his quest. The wooden torches are lit and in place on the walls, casting the room in an inviting orange glow. The old, worn, hand woven carpets frame the stone statue of the Light Spirit Eldin that looms in the center of the room. Lovingly painted pots litter the cracked dirt floor, organized from largest to smallest against the rounded walls.

The only large difference between this room and the room he remembers from his adventure is the addition of another door at the back, an expansion to the house Renado had built with the help of the Gorons.

A clinic for the expanding town.

Luda shuts the door quietly behind them and then turns, hands on hips and face expectant. She leans forward a little, letting her eyes rest on Twilight’s face. After a moment of silence, both of her eyebrows lift and her eyes widen, as she sends the farmhand an even more pointed look.

“So?” She says imploringly. “Where have you been? What have you been up to?” Her eyes flash back to Time for a moment before landing back on Twilight once more. “Rusl said some group of strangers showed up in Ordon and spirited you away on another adventure or...?”

Twilight opens his mouth to explain and then shuts it once more. He turns to Time, but the older man is no help, simply giving the Ordonian a shrug.

What Rusl had told her… wasn't technically wrong. Twilight had just happened to be back in the village helping Fado with those damned goats when five warriors had stepped onto the ranch.

Two of them appeared to be Twilight’s age, one with a flowing blue scarf and the other with the Master Sword of all things strapped to his back. Two of the others looked to be younger, the anxious brunette appearing to be a teenager while the one with the multicolored tunic made Twilight fear these men were traveling with children.

The last one, however, had been the one who had caused the normally sure seated rancher to almost fall from Epona’s saddle.

The armor was different, but undeniably similar. It was missing the overgrown moss, the vines that choked the arm guards and crossed the chest. Without the foliage and the rust that Twilight was accustomed to, the metal shined in the sun, sending flashes of silver and gold into the air.

He was missing his helmet, Twilight had thought idly.

He was also already missing his eye.

After that, it had not taken much–if any– convincing on the other heroes’ parts to get him to join. He was already on board.

“Well?” she says, cocking one hip. Her stance has the body language of Telma written all over it.

“W-well,” Twilight starts, “I’ve been traveling with some people from far off lands.” The farm hand spares a look at Time, who, instead of helping, is smiling faintly as Twilight flounders on his own.

Thanks a lot.

“We’ve been traveling around a lot, helping out wherever we can. I guess we just sort of… ended up here? Now?” Hylia, he is bad at lying.

Stretching the truth, a phantom, high pitched and giggly voice whispers in his ear. He ignores it.

“This is my… one of my new friends,” Twilight says, the words sounding wooden and forced to his own ears as he gestures to the Old Man.

“You may call me Time,” his mentor cuts in, holding out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Luda takes it and gives it a firm, polite shake, her father’s propriety shining through despite her reservations.

“Luda,” she introduces in return.

The young shamin gives Twilight another questioning look but ultimately drops it, her shoulders drooping slightly as she strides past the two heroes towards the back room.

“I’m assuming you’re here for my father. I’ll go grab him for you,” Luda says over her shoulder. “He’s in the back with a patient.”

She disappears into the other room and Twilight can just hear her raise the call of “Daaaad!” as the wood swings shut behind her, muffling her voice once again.

It is silent for a moment.

Time turns to him, mouth open to speak, but his words are drowned out as the sound of stone grinding on stone assaults the air.

The statue of Eldin in the center of the room is moving, gliding across the ground, the owl–Moth? Eagle? Twilight was never sure what Eldin was supposed to be. None of those things have lips– slowly shifting to the left, revealing the secret passage below.

As soon as the stone is out of the way, a head pops from the newly revealed hole in the ground. A head with slightly mussed auburn hair and with askew, round spectacles sitting precariously at the end of a familiar nose.

“Ah!” Shad exclaims, hefting himself up the final rungs of the ladder and into the room proper. The scholar adjusts his glasses and then smiles warmly, holding his hand out in a friendly greeting. “I thought I heard your voice. It is nice to see you again, Link.”

Twilight takes his outstretched palm with his own, giving the hand a short, strong shake. “Likewise, Shad. It’s nice to be back.”

“And not a moment too soon,” comes a calm, deep voice from the back of the room.

Renado sweeps into the room, looking serene as always despite the very tell-tale red that stains the ends of his long sleeves.

“We didn’t mean to pull you away from a patient,” Time says quickly, apparently having seen the blood as well.

The shamin waves the older man’s worries away. The tassels on his sleeves sway with the motion.

“He is in stable condition now. Luda can observe him while I am away.”

“She’s graduated from assistant then, has she?” Twilight asks.

“Yes,” Renado replies, the normally neutral expression on his face cracking slightly with pride. “She is coming along very nicely.”

The slight uptick to his lips falls and the carefully blank expression falls back into place on his face.

“However,” the older shamin continues, “the reason for her getting so much hands on experience is worrisome to say the least.”

“So there have been attacks?” Time asks, cutting right to the chase.

Renado eyes Time for a moment, an open weariness to his usually relaxed dark gaze.

Twilight takes a small step forward, drawing Renado’s eyes back to him. “Please,” he says, allowing the unfettered concern that had been howling in his chest all day to bleed into his words. “What's been going on?”

The shaman's eyes study him for a moment before he nods almost imperceptibly.

“As your friend said,” the man starts, voice still calm, “there have been more attacks as of late. The monsters are getting increasingly aggressive.” The shamin brings a hand to his chin, a cloud shadowing his eyes with worry. “Kargarocs have been encountered in increasingly large numbers. The Bombskits are growing less skittish. Stalhound packs spring to new heights every night.”

“But that’s not the worst of it,” Shad cuts in. “While there are more monsters, they’re easy enough to dispatch with a group of skilled hunters or warriors.”

The scholar and the shamin share a pointed look, an unsaid question rigning silently in the air between them.

“The problem,” Shad continues, choosing his words carefully. His eyes flicker over Twilight’s face, waiting for a reaction, “lays in what is controlling the monsters.”

“Controlling them?” Time presses.

Shad nods grimly.

“The Bulbins.”

And suddenly, the itching in Twilight’s scalp stops. The tight grip anxiety has on his stomach releases in shock.

The foggy memory clears and slots itself into place behind Twilight’s eyes.

A warm evening. A warm spring. A warm smile. Warm green eyes.

He had felt so warm, so protected, so safe, not a care in the world. The only thing on his mind was excitement for his journey the next day.

It would have been his first time going past Faron Woods. The first time he would see Hyrule Field. The first time going to Castle Town. His first chance to explore the world.

He had been excited but content, happy to be with his friends, Iliya smiling in front of him and Colin laughing by his side.

He had been so happy.

...

And then the tremors had started. Distant at first, but growing with each passing second until it was an earthquake, the water rippling and crashing in miniature waves around his legs as he fought for balance.

The rumbling grew and grew, rhythmic and deafening until with a terrible crescendo, a Bullbo had crashed through the wooden gate protecting the spirit spring, two Bulblins armed on its back.

Colin had gasped, stumbling back. Iliya had screamed, turning to run.

And he… he was frozen.

The beast had charged forward, crashing into his side and shoving him out of the way. One of it’s riders readied a bow, and with a twang, put an end to Iliya’s escape… and her screams.

He had wanted to run to her. He had wanted to grab her and Colin and flee into the secret passage, to safety.

He never got the chance, a club slamming into the back of his head, making the world explode with pain and darkness as he fell first to his knees, and then into the water.

Darkness. He could not move, could not swim up from the depths of his mind. He had felt water around him, water up his nose, water in his lungs but he had been unable to cough or even choke.

He had been drowning in that darkness when he had heard it.

That sound. A deep rumbling, resonant blast of an ivory horn, the notes diving low before flinging themselves higher in the air.

The call to the Twilight Realm. The all clear.

“Pup?”

Twilight drags himself from the memory, Time’s concerned face slowly swirling into clarity before his eyes as the images fade back into his brain.

“But that makes no sense,” Twilight mutters in bemusement, shaking his head to dislodge the final pieces of the memory from his vision.

“Why?” Time asks. “What are Bulblins?”

Both Shad and Renado’s heads whip around to face the armored hero, twin expressions of shock and confusion on their faces.

“He’s not from here,” Twilight throws at them by way of explanation, too deep in his own thoughts to come up with a more detailed or believable lie.

“Bulblins are…” Twilight pauses, unsure where to start.

Thankfully, Shad takes pity on him, stepping forward to provide a better explanation than Twilight ever could.

“Bulblins,”the man starts, adjusting his glasses slightly as he speaks to Time, “are a race that is related to Bokoblins, though how closely related, no one knows for sure.”

The scholar pinches his chin between his thumb and forefinger, a thoughtful expression dropping onto his face.

“What sets them apart from Bokoblins, other than the green skin, is their intelligence. They can build complex structures. They have their own language and have been known to speak rudimentary Hylian. They even have a hierarchical society, with a chief or king.”

“Their hierarchy is based on strength,” Twilight cuts in, having finally found his words. “Strongest at the top, weakest at the bottom. You can probably guess why they would side with Ganondorf.”

Time nods.

“But,” Twilight continues, “I defeated the King of the Bulblins in single combat. After that, they abandoned Ganondorf and fled back to the Gerudo Desert. They haven't been seen in Hyrule proper for years now.”

“Well, very apparently, they are back,” Renado replies, lips down turned. “Travelers and merchants have reportedly been attacked while traversing the kingdom. There have been sightings of Bulblin raiding parties as close to the village as Eastern Hyrule Field.”

A heavy hand lands on Twilight’s shoulder. He glances up at Time, and the two share a look. Question. Response. Not a word spoken.

“We’ll head out first thing tomorrow morning,” Twilight says,voice strong, decisive as he wrenches his gaze away from his mentor to look at the other men in the room.

Shad adjusts his spectacles again, eyes wide, matching the circular frames. Renado, as unflappable as ever, tilts his head ever so slightly to the left.

“May I ask who is included in this ‘we?’” the shamin asks, eyes once again flitting to look at Time before they lock on Twilight once more. “I will not send good people to their deaths.”

“The group I’m traveling with is more than capable of handling this,” Twilight replies firmly. “I would trust each and every one of them with my life.”

Twilight doesn't even have to look to know that Time is smiling behind him. Or at least, sporting that soft eyed look he gets sometimes, half of his mouth pulled up, brows high.

The shamin raises his head slightly, aprasing.

Slowly he inclines his head. Graceful as ever.

“Then we shall leave it in your capable hands, Link.”

…

As they exit the shamin’s house, Twilight sees that Hyrule and Sky are gone from the Spirit Spring.

The farmhand catches himself as he lets a sigh of relief breeze past his lips at seeing the warm waters calm and empty. He now understands why it had made him so sick to see them happy there. Happy and content and warm.

With a frown, Twilight turns away from the water, feet slowly carrying him through the town, following in Time’s dusty footsteps.

They continue to the hotel in relative silence.

If Twilight were to guess, he would assume Time’s mind was already occupied with thoughts of the coming battle. Formations, pairs, weapons, all of it whirling through the old man’s mind at a breakneck pace.

Twilight, on the other hand, feels mired in memories, each one dragging through his mind and pulling at his eyes, forcing him to look, to see.

Before he knows it, they are back in their shared room, Time making adjustments to his armor in the corner while Twilight stands in the center of the room, lost.

The weight of the Shadow Crystal suddenly increases tenfold, the leather cord of the necklace biting into the back of his neck. Twilight idly brings a hand up, fingers hovering over the warm, warped obsidian stone.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Time asks and Twilight’s head snaps up.

The Old Man doesnt look up from his work, a ploy to look as unobtrusive, as unjudging as possible.

The rancher feels his hand drop back to his side.

“Talk about what?”

Twilight knows he's being obtuse.

He also knows he doesn't want to talk about it.

Time merely shrugs his shoulders, thankfully taking the hint and the air around them is once again silent, save for the faint scrubbing sound of a cloth on metal.

Soon enough boots stomping up the stairs and the sound of arguing breaks the awkward air in the room, signalling the arrival of Legend and Warriors back into the hotel.

“I’m simply saying that the purple one looked nice!” Warriors says, voice high and defensive as he stomps up the final step, head turned back to address Legend.

“And I’m simply saying,” Legend replies in an irritated, huffy voice, clearly struggling a bit more under the weight of his laden arms than Warriors, “That purple is not your color.”

“Oh, I’m about to make purple your color,” Warriors grumbles back as he enters Twilight and Time’s room and sets down his load of bags. Time spares them a glance, before rolling his eye and going back to his armor.

Legend deposits his load on the ground as well and then fixes Warriors with a look, one hip cocked and one eyebrow raised.

“Wanna say that again, Pretty Boy?”

Without responding, Warriors sits down and begins pulling bottles full of a pearlescent, red and rippling, mesmerizing blue liquid onto the ground. Legend mirrors him, grabbing bandages of all sizes from his own bags organizing them by size as he goes.

“I could snap you like a twig,” Warriors comments as if he's talking about the weather, peering at some materials for fletching arrows.

“Oh, I’d love to see you try,” Legend responds just as flippantly as he adds another red potion to Warriors growing line of bottles.

Twilight rolls his eyes.

He will never understand their friendship.

Wild, Wind, and Four are the next to get back, the sound of feet quickly ascending the wooden stairs the only warning Twilight gets before two pairs of hands grab at his shoulders and yank him down to be face level with their youngest member.

“You have fish that are bombs in your Hyrule?! My Hyrule is a fucking ocean and we dont have bomb fish!!”

“Language.” Two voices call out, and Wind flips off the air, pointing his finger to indicate the room at large.

“Twilight,” and here, Wild’s voice sounds pained, like the farmhand has wronged him in the most irreparable way possible. His face is scrunched up, eyes closed, brows down and mouth in a wince. “Twilight, how did you fail to mention that you live in a world with exploding bugs?!”

Two pairs of very expectant blue eyes look up at him, like both young heroes are actually trying to get an explanation out of him.

Twilight looks up for help and catches the eye of Four who stands in the doorway. Half of the teen’s mouth lifts into a wry grin, both eyebrows up and then he turns, leaving Twilight to his fate.

“Well?”

“Uhhhhh,” he replies, very intelligently. “It never came up?”

By the look on both teen’s faces, that is not the right answer.

After an unfortunately thorough chewing out by the blondes, who manage to extract a promise from Twilight to test out the bombs at a later date, Hyrule and Sky finally descend the stairs from the upper levels, apparently done with the hot springs.

Both are positively glowing, their faces smiling and cheeks still flushed from the heat.

Soon enough, dinner is served in the lobby, a type of spiced cucco served with a yogurt sauce with flatbread. The heroes descend on the food, their table picked clean in an almost embarrassingly quick amount of time. It’s good, though Twilight muses that WIld could probably improve the recipe in at least 12 different ways.

After the meal, Time briefs everyone on their task for the next morning and then turns them loose to make their preparations.

Before Twilight knows it, sunset orange light bleeds into their room from the window and Four once again stands in the doorway of Twilight, Time, and Wild’s room. Sky and Legend stand behind the smaller teen staring hopefully at Twilight from over the smithy’s head.

Well, Sky looks hopeful. Legend looks impatiently expectant.

“We were wondering if you would like to come with us to the Goron stands,” the small hero says, eyes flicking over his shoulder to include the other two in the statement. “We figured you would know some of the sellers.”

On his bed, Wild perkes up and stows his slate back on his belt, obviously interested in the proposition.

Twilight feels the younger’s eyes on his back but ignores the puppy dog stare being thrown his way. Besides, it's entirely unnecessary. Now that Twilight knew what was causing his metaphorical (and not so metaphorical) hackles to rise, he sure as Hylia wasn't going to let these idiots out of his sight.

Which is how Twilight finds himself trailing behind Sky, Legend, and Wild as they make their way through the dusty streets of Kakariko once more, the last light of day bleeding red against their backs, sending their shadows crawling along in front of them.

The sight of the extended shades shifts something in Twilight. The Shadow Crystal feels a bit heavier, a bit warmer against his chest. Next to him, Twilight thinks he sees Four wave his hand subtly at his own shadow, the dark reflection mirroring the movement.

Soon enough, the lanterns from the pop-up stands come into view and Wild takes off, dragging Sky through the throng of shoppers and toward the first stall. Legend follows at a slower pace, picking his way through the tourists with a bit more grace than the champion

The Skyloftian is apparently looking for something to get his Zelda as an anniversary present and had enlisted the help of Legend to pick through the prospects. The pink haired hero was apparently very particular about his jewelry, magic or not, and had a keen eye for quality and cut.

Wild was there to look for a new pair of earrings for himself, excited to add to his own inventory of shiny things like the magpie he was.

From what Twilight can see over the crowd, Wild holds up a pair of extremely gaudy looking hoops–they’re absolutely massive, thick, and over bedazzled. They look like they could knock out the wearer if they moved their head wrong–and Legend makes a dismissive hiss, as though the metal has personally offended him. Wild grins at his disapproval and turns to the vendor Goron, asking about the price.

Sky laughs as Legend seethes.

Beside him Four seems like he’s just about to dive into the fray of people toward a stand selling knives when a voice has both him and Twilight turning.

“More friends of yours?” Luda asks as she pulls herself from the crowd and comes to stand at Twilight’s side, looking at the squabbling boys.

Wild somehow finds an even uglier pair and holds them up to his ears. Legend looks like he's going to chomp the other’s head off. Sky, standing between the two, is too busy looking at a necklace to be any the wiser.

“Unfortunately,” Four mutters for Twilight.

The shaman in training startles, seemingly seeing Four on Twilight’s other side for the first time.

“Oh, hello!” She says and Twilight winces as she bends down to address the smaller like one would a child. Four’s right eye twitches, cobalt and cold. “My name is Luda. What’s your name?”

“Four,” the smithy says, standing up straighter and injecting as much icy politeness into his voice as possible. He holds out his hand. “A pleasure.”

Luda blinks at the tone and overly rigid behavior and then straightens up, taking the smithy’s hand and giving it a quick shake.

She sends a questioning look Twilight’s way.

“First Time and now Four. Your friends have some pretty interesting names, Link.”

“They’re nicknames, actually,” Four corrects, jumping back in before Twilight has to fumble his way through another stretched truth. “We’re all from pretty far away, so some of our names are difficult to pronounce outside of our native languages,” he says, the lie slipping smoothly from the teens lips like a polished river stone.

It sounds believable even to Twilight.

Luda's face lights up at his words, a proud and challenging glint to her dark eyes.

“I think I’ll be the judge of that,” she says with a smile and a wink. “I’m pretty fluent in Goron- if I do say so myself- and I’ve been working on my Zora and ancient Sheika recently.”

Four’s eyes alight in response, a competitive grin of his own pulling at his face and a mischievous fire in his eyes.

“Cochi-ichoa-ichia ichiri,” pops from the boy’s mouth, each syllable bubbling from his lips, the sounds quick and chittery, like a bird or a squirrel as he places a hand on his stomach– where the seams of his tunic come together– and bends slightly at the waist in a small bow.

Twilight stares wide eyed at the teen and next to him, the farmhand swears Luda’s eyes damn near pop out of her head.

“What the hell was that?” Twilight sputters.

Four simply grins smugly and shrugs his shoulders before turning away to walk toward the stalls. Luda lets out a shocked little laugh and then jogs forward, throwing a wave back at Twilight before catching up with Four, questions flying from her mouth as soon as she can think of them.

They are swallowed by the crowd of shoppers.

And so Twilight is left to his own devices.

Not really there to buy anything himself, Twilight merely peruses the stalls slowly, saying hello to Gor Liggs and his son, Carrig as he browses. As he passes in front of one of the many jewelry stands, Ota, the young Goron, excitedly asks when Twilight would head back to the summit for more wrestling matches. Apparently Darbus was looking for a good match and hadn't found one among his brothers yet.

Not wanting to disappoint the kid, Twilight quickly gives him a humble non answer, a ‘as soon as I’ve got the time’ and then he moves along.

At the next vendor, Twilight finds Legend and Wild, the pink haired hero nodding his head appreciatively as the scarred boy tucks a couple of strands of long hair behind his ear, modeling another pair of earrings.

Twilight gives a whistle and nods his head. He has to hand it to Legend. The guy really does have an eye for this stuff.

The piece that Wild wears is elegant but not overly showy. The part that actually sits in the teen’s ear– the stud, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Iliya’s reminds– is a simple ball of silver. However, thin lines of ivy seem to grow from the ball, drawing icy swirls of vines and leaves from the teen’s lobe to the outer parts of his ear.

“Looks nice, Cub,” Twilight says, earning a glittering smile from the champion.

“Much nicer than those monstrositiesfrom earlier,” Legend agrees, his face screwing up as if he were chewing on a lemon at even the thought of the horrendous hoops.

Wild sticks his tongue out at the comment and then quickly pulls his slate from his belt to pay for the earrings. Then, they set out to find Sky among the crowd of tourists.

The chosen hero is easy enough to spot, his distinctive white sailcloth-cape distinguishable even in the fading light of the sunset.

However, apparently, while he is easy to spot, he is very difficult to please. At least when it comes to getting a gift for his girlfriend.

By the time the three of them make their way back toward where the Skyloftian is examining bracelets, the young man has worked himself into a tizzy, clutching multiple pieces of jewelry in both hands, looking back and forth and back and forth.

It takes a while, but Legend is eventually able to talk the chosen hero down, and helps Sky to select a simple metal charm–a stylized sun with thin rays of light radiating off it–to go along with the pink, red, blue and purple beads Sky had been carefully whittling and dying over the last few weeks.

With their main task done, the group of four simply browses through the stands as they wait for Four to get his fill of questions.

From where Twilight can see, Four and Luda are still chatting away six stalls down, the teen examining a large looking, metal hammer with interest. He points at some part of it, first talking to the girl next to him and then shifting to ask something of the vendor.

The two listen with rapt attention as the Goron responds and then Luda points to another part of the hammer– the side of the hammer’s face– her head shifting to the right as she clarifies. Both Four and the vendor nod at her, the small smithy smiling brightly as he adds something else that has Luda nodding right back.

The two continue to chat with the Goron, eyes equally bright, soaking in the knowledge.

Twilight smiles at the sight.

Next to him, Wild holds up a garish gold necklace, odd metal spikes hanging from a central, gold plated eye. Legend scowls at it and Sky merely laughs, pretending to take interest, if only to rile the veteran hero up further.

In front of him, Twilight watches as the sun finally, finally takes its rest, sinking below the cliffs of the canyon in one last swipe of a red and orange paintbrush. As the laughs and jeers around him increase, Wild now pushing a diadem into Legend’s hair, the navy blue of dusk finally settles like a blanket above them, heralding the night.

All is calm.

That should have been his first hint.

The second at least had the courtesy of being more obvious.

A faint tinkling starts from the table next to them, dragging Twilight’s attention away from the skyline.

Two rings clink together. Three rings clink together. All the rings clink together.

The farmhand’s whole world narrows down to the table, the sound of Wild’s laughing, Legend’s snarls, Sky’s weak attempts to play neutral all falling away as he stares as the silver and gold pieces shift against one another on the table.

Twilight watches as the rings shift and then jump in time, moving on their own.

No… not moving on their own!–

What started as an imperceptible tremble under his toes grows, the ground beneath his feet rumbling and quaking, forcing the farmhand to brace his legs beneath himself to stay standing.

The earrings, necklaces, bracelets, tools, swords, everything begins to clink together. Then they do more than clink, jumping in chaotic waves, clanging so loudly it rings in Twilight’s ears, a picaxe to the brain.

The sound of a horn, no five, no seven, blasts from the end of the canyon in a hellish chorus, the low notes sending the earthquake up into Twilight's stomach, setting off an avalanche of ice into his blood. The anxiety in his guts cracks open like a fissure, fear spilling out.

Beside him, Sky loses his footing, falling forward. Twilight doesn't even let him touch the ground, razor sharp instincts allowing him to catch the young man’s sailcloth turned cape and haul the chosen hero behind himself.

With a strong step forward, Twilight throws his arms open, shielding the three other heroes behind himself just as the wave of Bulbos turn the corner, screaming into the village.

Around them, cries– Hylian, Goron– rise into the air as the beasts charge.

Everything is chaos. Bulbos squeal and grunt and shout in time with cries of fear as the beasts careen into the crowd and through the stalls. Broken wood, precious jewels, fire; it all flies through the air as bodies shove into Twilight from all sides, the crowd moving as one, dragging them downstream.

Behind him, Twilight feels hands grab into his tunic, into his pelt like a lifeline. He reaches back, catching what feels like Sky’s sailcloth between his fingers and holds on with all the strength and desperation he can manage.

A snap and an errant shard of wood comes careening from the darkness, slamming into the side of Twilight’s head, but he hardly notices. He’s too preoccupied with keeping his hands on his boys as he's pulled forward by the current of people, making sure they aren’t pulled away by the flood or Hylia forbid, fall to the ground to be trampled.

Oh Hylia, Twilight thinks, the ice in his veins turning sharp and pointed, stabbing into his lungs as fear takes his breath away.

Where's Luda?! Where’s Four?!

Twilight lifts his head, trying for a better vantage point, but is given an elbow to the eye and a shove from the side for his troubles, sending him reeling but not down. Hylia, he can not go down and drag the others down with him.

More screams rise into the air as a lantern smashes into a stall setting the whole thing ablaze, scattering embers and hot oil like pollen from a poppy.

Immediately the crowd moves, shifts, dives away from the danger, a school of fish moving on instinct in the dark.

Twilight is powerless to stop it, dragged to the left of the street by the horde. Someone falls next to the pelt wearing hero, landing bodily into his side, wrenching his left arm back. The cloth connecting him to his brothers threatens to be pulled from his hand but Twilight holds on all the harder, digging his nails into the fabric.

Another shove and out of the side of his eye, Twilight catches how the light of the fire glints in shades of oil spill orange and green off the side of oxidized and rumbled sheet metal in the shape of a tall building.

Barnes Bombs.

Somewhere he recognises. Somewhere the crowd is swimming away from in their haste to make it to the hotels.

A shoreline in a storm.

Twilight locks his knees against the onslaught of people and feels a body slam into his back. The sailcloth goes slack in his hand. Sky, most likely then.

Looping the fabric around his wrist for security, Twilight ducks his head and begins to ram his way to the sides of the crowd, earning him errant punches and elbows and kicks from all directions but he keeps moving. By Hylia, he keeps moving. Keeps moving forward.

With a final push, Twilight breeches the mass of bodies and throws himself flush against the side of Barnes’ shop, the metal uncomfortable against his back as he all but drags Sky and the others to his side.

At a glance, they seem to be battered and rattled but overall fine. Sky seems the least injured, though his wide, aquamarine eyes catch in the fire, big and frantic and overwhelmed. Behind him, Legend sports a few rips to his tunic and a rapidly purpling chin, his own eyes flashing back and forth over the crowd, searching. Blood gushes from WIid’s nose and drips off his jaw though the teen hardly acknowledges it as he catches sight of Twilight, face contorted in concern.

Twilight doesn't feel his own cuts and bruises, the nick on his forehead from the wooden plank or ache in his arm or the pain in his ribs. His blood is too warm with adrenaline to feel any pain, too cold with fear to care if he did.

They all lock eyes and in the next moment, they draw their weapons, Twilight and Sky going for their swords while Wild pulls a massive, stone bludgeon from his slate. Legend’s hands wrap around the Ice Rod he had been using earlier, ready to drop tons of ice on their adversaries.

And yet, as soon as they ready themselves, the sound of pounding hooves and shattering wood and screams the new, earth shattering normal, it all flies away, the ground slowly coming to a halt beneath Twilight’s feet.

In a flash, the riders are gone, dark shadows moving away like ghosts into the night, leaving only swirling dust clouds and destruction behind them as proof of their existence.

In a matter of seconds, the street is clear of most people, only glittering metal, ravaged stalls, and the injured left in the dusty road.

Immediately, Twilight’s eyes are scanning the dirt, looking for a small childlike figure amongst the rubble. He searches for that distinctive quadripartite tunic, those locks of golden hair in the lantern light. Anything.

Every passing second that the farmhand sees neither hide nor hair of the small smithy, his heart ratchets up three notches in his chest, his breaths coming out ragged and panting.

Twilight doesn't know what he dreads more in that moment:the boy staying missing, or finding him.

The sound of creaking wood sends Twilight’s head whipping up from his frantic search.

Across the street, a pile of debris shifts, revealing the yellowed, rocky skin of a hunched up Goron slowly uncurling.

The sentient rock straightens, coming to his feet first and then slowly uncurling the rest of the way, wood and dust falling away from his back as he uncrosses his arms from around where he had been curled.

And as he stands up, Twilight watches with fascination as two figures are slowly revealed to the firelight, both with similar bob haircuts but in opposite colors; one sable, one golden. Slowly, the two disoriented figures stand from their huddled position, looking dazed and rattled but none the worse for wear.

Four and Luda. Safe.

Twilight must make some kind of choked off cough, because suddenly both teens are looking at him. Something like pained relief slams over Four's face and the teen stumbles forward over the shattered planks of wood toward the farmhand, Luda following close behind.

Something in Twilight settles at the sight of of the two, safe and s–

Thunder.

Pure, deep, rolling thunder shatters the delicate calm, ripping apart the second long reprieve

The thunder rises, the note going from a grumbling, vibration of the air to a triumphant war call, rattling through Twilight’s body, that sick sense of deja vu clawing at the back of his brain as his eyes are all but forced from the teens back toward the entrance of the village.

There, standing in the pale light of the rising moon in front of the steaming water of the Spirit Spring, is Lord Bullbo, his distinctive gray hair, massive tusks, and glowing red eyes visible even from the other side of town.

Astride the hulking beast’s back is a green skinned figure, too large to be a regular Bulblin but too small to be the King, large, painted horns hooked and dangerous, gleaming red eyes flashing in the firelight.

The too large Bulblin’s glowing eyes lock onto Twilight and then flash to the teens, a snaggle-toothed sneer pulling at his lips as the man?–monster catches sight of the would-be reunion.

And then the Bulblin flicks the reins and Lord Bullbo rears back with an ear splitting squeal, legs heaving the gargantuan body as fast a runaway carriage down the dirt street.

Twilight’s body is moving before the farmhand even registers it, sprinting forward, arms outstretched. Beside him, Sky, and Wild match him step for step. Legend does one better, the wings on his boots fluttering up a storm as the pink haired hero sprints like the winds, pulling in front of the farmhand, reaching forward

Across from the heroes, the Goron dives, making a grab for the teens, trying to pull them from harm's way once more.

Above them, the Bulblin looms, two pairs of blood moon eyes locked onto the youths caught in the middle of it all.

And Four and Luda…

Well, they run.

They run, dust kicked up in swirls by their feet.

They run, twin expressions of fear blowing their eyes wide.

They run, Luda pulling ahead, her longer strides allowing her to cover more distance.

They run, but as the shadow of the charging beast descends over them, faster than the Goron can dive, faster than Legend can sprint, Twilight knows with a flash of clarity that neither of them is going to make it in time.

Twilight knows they’re not going to make it, and he can see the moment that Four knows it too.

Can see it in the way the smithy’s eyes harden into flinty, multicolored gems. Can see it as he plants his feet, presses both hands into Luda’s back and with a full body movement, shoves her forward into Legend’s arms.

Twilight watches as, alone, the tiny hero turns to meet his fate head on.

And then, in the next second, Twilight can no longer see Four, the teen ripped away by the fabric of his hood, up into the arms of the Prince Bulblin in a flash of silvery boar hide and a snorting laugh.

In the matter of milliseconds, the gray beast has made it to the end of the canyon, the end of the town and the bastard Bulblin pulls on the warthog’s reigns, pulling the spitting bullbo until the creature rears back on its back hooves, screaming in fury.

The Prince Bulblin raises his prize and...

And Hylia, for the splitest of seconds, Twilight sees Colin in the monster’s hands.

He sees Colin, sweet, intelligent, brave Colin, unconscious in the arms of King Bulblin, held aloft in the noonday sun, a war trophy to spur Twilight into action. To spur Twilight to fight.

But then that moment ends.

It is night once more, the moon glinting off Lord Bullbo and illuminating the not-King Bulbin as he struggles to contain his captive even as he raises the teen skyward.

Because Four is not Colin.

Because unlike Colin–brave despite himself but still a child at heart– Four does not faint in the arms of the Bulblin.

No.

Four hisses and spits like a feral fox, punching, kicking, clawing at every piece of green skin he can reach. The smithy rages in the Bulblin’s grip, thrashing wildly, nearly sending the rider from his saddle as he swings precariously in the monster’s hold.

Twilight dares to hope the Bulblin will lose his grip.

He doesn't.

Instead, he adjusts his grasp in the green fabric of the hood while his other hand releases its hold on the reins long enough to grab a massive wooden club from the back of the saddle. The Bulblin raises it above his head, looks straight at Twilight, and then, with a vengeful, poison filled smile, brings it down savagely.

Once, twice, three times.

Only then does Four still, finally going limp like Colin did.

And only then does the not-King Bulblin lift the smithy with a scream of triumph, the moon and the fires illuminating both monster and hero in the glow of destruction, red eyes bright in brutal glee as the green of Four’s headband turns black, drenched in blood.

A twang sounds from behind Twilight, an arrow sailing through the air only to glance off the side of the not-King’s armor harmlessly. The Bulblin smiles cruelly as squealing, terrible chuckles rip up from his throat at the failed attempt to save their friend.

Then, with a jolt of the reins, the Bulblin crashes away into the night with Four tucked under his arm like a sack of potatoes.

For a second, it is quiet, the only sound breaking the silence the crackling of the fires quickly consuming the destroyed stands.

In the next moment,Twilight begins furiously turning out his pockets,desperate to feel the smooth wood of that two belled flute, where is it, where the hell did he–

“Twi,” Wild says, voice urgent and rough with worry, as he, Sky, Legend, and the shaking Luda jog over to the farmhand’s side, matching expressions of concern and frightened anger on their faces. “Twi, what are you doing? We have to–

There!

Twilight yanks Iliya’s Charm free from his back pocket, quickly presses the mouthpiece to his lips and blasts three descending notes twice.

Almost immediately, there is an answering whinney and the distant but quickly approaching gallop of hooves. In less than a minute, Epona stands by his side, muscles twitching and hooves pawing restlessly at the dirt, in tune with her master’s clawing anxiety, his need to run, his need to run now.

With sure movements, Twilight swings himself onto her back, heels ready to tap Epona into movement, hands already at the reigns ready to snap–

“Twi.”

Twilight’s legs freeze in place, his hands hovering, holding the worn leather of the reins in a death grip.

He wrenches his eyes from the dirt path in front of him, looking down.

Twilight looks at them and Wild stares back with imploring eyes, hand on Epona’s side as blood drips from his nose. His face is hard as stone, determined. Beside the champion, Legend glares up at Twilight, daring the other hero to tell them to leave. The veteran’s electric blue eyes are bright with fire, inside and out, guilt, concern, and anger taking turns pulling at his face. Behind the two, Sky nods his head as he sets his jaw, ready for anything.

Twilight looks at them, and even though anxiety and fear and a howling, clawinganger boil in his guts, he feel totally and utterly proud and totally and utterly stupid.

Because of course they want to help. Of course they needto help.

And of course he’s not alone. Not anymore.

He doesn't have to try to save Colin Four on his own. He doesn't have to be a one man army riding out into the sunset headless of his own safety.

Because, no matter how much it pains him to see them hurt, or how much it kills him that they’re in danger, he can’t protect them from everything. What literally just happened proved that without a shadow of a doubt.

He can’t protect them. Can't lock them away under his watchful eyes forever. Can’t force them to abandon who they are just to satisfy his own conscience.

He can’t protect them from the darkness.

But he can help them fight it.

And by Hylia, they can help him fight it too.

So, these thoughts singing in Twilight’s head, the pelt wearing hero scoots forward in the saddle and offers a hand down to his fellow heroes.

Legend immediately steps forward to take it, but pauses.

“Got an extra bow in that thing?” Legend asks gruffly, flicking steely eyes at Wild.

The champion nods, and with a click, a wooden bow with metal reinforcements glows into life. The veteran hero takes it and the proffered quiver full of arrows and then grabs Twilight’s hand, seating himself snuggly against the farmhand’s back.

In a flash of ethereal light, more ribbons of effervescent aqua condense from nothing, weaving together, forming… something.

It looks like a Guardian, segmented and criss crossed with veins of orange and aqua light. However, instead of the vase shaped, octopus designs of those Sheika monstrosities, this machine is sleek, two wheeled and fashioned in the style of a horse, saddle and equine head and all.

It is big enough for only one rider.

Wild quickly mounts up on the device like it's the most natural thing in the world, feet sliding into the metal stirrups and hands going straight for the handlebars that stick from the neck of the mechanical horse. He gives the nobs there a twist with his wrists until the device gives a kick, a grumbled humming sounding from the thing.

With a final click of his slate, a vicious looking, serrated triplicate boomerang materializes in the champion’s hand, steel glinting dangerously in the moonlight..

With a soft cough, Sky steps forward until he stands next to Epona’s side gazing up at Twilight. He unsheathes the Master Sword, glances over the sacred blade for only a second, before he offers the purple and green pommel to Twilight.

“We’ll switch,” he says, nodding to Twilight’s Ordonian sword. “She wants to go with you.”

Twilight takes the blade, his callouses sliding against the smooth pommel, the grip fitting perfectly in his hand like it was made for him. He supposes he knows now that it wasbut that doesn't tarnish the feeling holding the sword gives to him.

He slides it into the sheath on his back, nodding his head in thanks to the Skyloftian.

Sky nods in reply, takingTwilight’s sword. It is an uneven trade, but one the chosen hero seems happy enough to make.

“I’ll get the others,” Sky says, serious. “We’ll be there soon.”

With that, the chosen hero takes off down the street toward the Elde Inn, his thick, labored breaths showing no sign of slowing the Skyloftian down.

Which just leaves...

“Bring him back,” Luda says, eyes big as she stares up at Twilight. Her voice, however, is steady and hard. An order. “Bring him back just like Colin.”

Twilight nods, a silent oath.

The girl accepts it, stepping back from Epona’s side with a final pet to the horse’s twitching flank before she too turns away and runs back toward her house, no doubt to get her father to help the injured.

Everything settled, Twilight sets his eyes on the moonlit, dirt road ahead of them. Legend shifts behind him, readying his bow. Beside Epona, Wild revs his machine, the wheels spinning, sending up clouds of dust.

“Let go get our smithy back,” Twilight says, voice all fangs.

Then, with a snap of the reigns, Epona bursts into motion, her powerful legs galloping them further into the canyon, further into the dark.

#alone together #lu alone together #linked universe #lu twilight #lu four #lu time #lu legend #lu wild #lu warriors #uhhhhhhhhhh this is a long one boys #would recommend reading on ao3 tbh #anyway #enjoy #train writes

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timeagainreviews · 5 years ago

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The Great Con-Junction

For a place like the world-famous Elstree Studios in London, history is made on the regular. Movies like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "Hot Fuzz," and even "Star Wars" have all been captured to celluloid moving at twenty-four frames per second. However, it was a lesser-known, though no less ambitious film that had eager fans lining up around the block on a mild February morning nearly forty years later. The film I speak of is none other than Jim Henson's 1982 cult-classic "The Dark Crystal." Myself and at least 200 other attendees were gathered for the first official Dark Crystal convention, celebrating both the film and the Netflix series. Taking place at the very studio where the movie was filmed, Thames Con's "The Great Con-Junction," was also the biggest reunion of the original cast and crew since the film's release. Once again, history was being made at Elstree Studios.

Upon learning of the convention I was filled with both desire and regret. Desire to go, and regret that I most likely wouldn’t be able. I live in Glasgow which is 6.5 hours away from London by car, and I don’t drive. On top of that, I hadn’t any money saved for such an occasion. But through the generosity of several friends, my mother, and my boyfriend willing to drive me there, the impossible was suddenly very tangible. With only twenty days until the convention, I was one of the lucky few able to attend this momentous affair.

It may seem odd that such a niche convention could draw someone from as far away as Glasgow, and in some cases the US and Australia. But if you’ve ever been to a Star Trek or My Little Pony convention, you may have some idea as to the sort of passion we’re dealing with. For many, Dark Crystal isn’t merely a great creative property, it’s life-changing. As a child, Jim Henson’s work left an indelible mark upon my soul. Projects like "Fraggle Rock," "Storyteller," and "The Flintstones," inspired creativity in me and filled me with the desire to one day work for the Jim Henson Company. Sadly, years of adulting did their best to dull that flame to a mere ember. However, after last year’s premiere of "The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance," that ember grew into a roiling fire.

For the past month, I’ve been a ball of excited energy leading up to the convention. I’ve immersed myself in all things Jim Henson. Whether it be rewatching the Netflix series for the umpteenth time, revisiting Labyrinth, or reading JM Lee’s YA Dark Crystal novels, it’s been all I could do not to crack up. In the final week leading up to the event, I directed this nervous excitement into creating a cosplay as the Crystal of Truth, wrapped in black chains and metal claws. When the day finally arrived and I found myself waiting in line with other excited fans decked out in purple, or cosplaying as Deet or Rian, I knew I was with my people. The air was abuzz with excitement as we were slowly ushered into the building.

The event hall at Elstree was decorated with posters of scenes from the movie along with mood lighting. Part of the ticket cost afforded each attendee a beautiful signed print by Brian Froud. A bar at the entrance was selling official Dark Crystal merch including the ThinkGeek Fizzgig puppet only available in the states. Right away I had blown most of my budget, but my new furry friend would agree I made the right choice! I’d been there not two minutes, and already my arms were full of swag. I took this opportunity to get my Fizzgig and a book signed by both Brian and Wendy Froud, who were very generously autographing people’s items for free.

Usually, conventions leave a bad taste in my mouth as they seem like supremely capitalist ventures. And while there were plenty of things to buy, the Frouds’ generosity set the real tone of the event. Not only were they generous with their autographs, but they were also incredibly generous with their time. It seemed as though every person that talked to them was given an opportunity to gush and share their personal stories. As I told them both how much their work meant to me, they were treating it as though it were the first time they had heard it that day. Brian even took the time to doodle a little Fizzgig and Skeksis for me alongside his whimsical signature. The impression they left me with is that they were both very genuine and down to earth people, and meeting them is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

One of the things Mr Froud shared with me was that in his experience, people’s reaction to the Dark Crystal is usually always something creative. People go off and make fan art, cosplays, puppets, or even their own artistic endeavours. You could see proof of this all around the room that day. I met a brilliant artist from Seattle named Nori (@noriretherford), who in exchange for doodles from attendees was giving beautiful prints of her fan art. I drew my best skekTek from memory and have the cutest depiction of Seladon, Tavra, and Brea playing as children to show for it. There were cosplays with humbling levels of detail and even the occasional puppets of people’s original characters. All around you, creativity was swirling, and people were passionately sharing their enthusiasm with one another.

These initial couple of hours were dedicated to meet and greets with the cast, crew, and fellow attendees. Everyone seemed just as interested to listen as they were to share. One attendee remarked to me how she had never before felt more encouraged to speak to strangers than she had at the convention. Even my boyfriend, who is generally shy, was coming out of his shell and joining in the conversations. I was also pleased that the convention was managed well enough that I didn’t spend my entire day waiting in line to meet someone while he was relegated to watching my things. I was actually able to share this experience with him as opposed to relaying it through dreamfasting later. This made meeting the guests less of a thing to check off a list, and more of an experience.

My only real qualm with the structure of the convention was the Skeksis tea which was offered as part of the ticket price. Since I was unaware that the guests would be available all day, I was a bit late to lunch meaning the banquet was completely picked over by the time we had gotten there. No amount of cute creative table displays or impressively crafted Nebrie cake could obscure the fact that we were forced to find our lunch at the McDonalds across the road. Furthermore, I was unaware that the lunch was buffet style, which meant that if someone wanted to be as gluttonous as skekAyuk, it would leave the rest of us hungry. We were not alone in this, as several others were left to look upon the empty tables with dismay. That being said, for a first-time convention, it’s impressive that so little went awry.

For me, the biggest highlight of the day was getting to actually see the Gelfling puppets along with their respective puppeteers. Both Beccy Henderson and Neil Sterenberg had Deet and Rian with them. I’m not ashamed to admit that I hugged Deet. Being able to see the detail of the puppets and feel the various textures employed by the brilliant fabricators at the Jim Henson Creature Workshop was mindblowing. Not to mention that both Beccy and Neil were just as generous with their time as the Frouds. Though I would have to say the most exciting puppet I met that day has to go to Hup, as Victor Yerrid was actually puppeteering him and speaking directly to attendees in Podling. Hearing Hup say my name and talk to me was overwhelmingly exciting! That man is a brilliant puppeteer.

Throughout the day there were also several panels with guests from both the TV show and the movie. It was fascinating to listen to each of them tell their stories. Whether it be anecdotes about Jim Henson or tales about trying to navigate hot costumes under studio lights, it was a treasure trove of information. Listening to these stories was a constant reminder of the sheer amount of history present in the room. Each one of these guests had their own incredible careers, and here they all were, ready to share their fantastic stories. Yet despite this being an intimate gathering of a small group of creatives reuniting after 38+ years, it never once felt like it was all about them. You didn’t feel like an interloper or an evesdropper. We were all part of this wonderful experience together.

It was puppeteer Louise Gold’s remarks to the crowd about this that really put into words what we were all thinking. Through stifled tears, she remarked that she had initially come to see all of her old friends, but had found herself equally enriched by meeting the fans. Seeing all of us come together and sharing our stories was as inspiring to her as it was for us. Hearing her impassioned words moved quite a few of us to tears, myself included. She was easily one of my favourite people I met yesterday, and not just because she was so wonderfully extra. Her words spoke the same truth as Brian Froud's- what has resulted from this fandom is something creative. The Dark Crystal hasn’t simply entertained, it has changed lives.

Of course, like any good convention, it wasn’t just the guests in the spotlight. The cosplay contest allowed for an opportunity for the fans to strut their stuff. Much like the ticket giveaway the organisers had done, they couldn’t decide on just one winner. There was so much goodwill and positivity flowing that honourable mentions were given prizes as well, and with good reason. There were so many incredible costumes that I doubt I could have picked the best of the lot. There were Gelflings, Skeksis, a Hup, and even an urRu! My favourite of the lot was a mother-daughter duo who went as Brea and Kira respectively. But that may just have to do with the fact that I’m a big Brea fan and her costume was incredible!

Were I to think of any one word to explain how I feel about being able to attend this convention it would be grateful. I left feeling rejuvinated. My boyfriend even commented that I was “glowing.” I wish everyone in the fandom could have the same experience. I’ve seen so many passionate fans online in the last day wishing they could have gone, and I very easily could have been one of them. It’s proof to me that this fandom has more to it than just a few people toiling away in their basements. There is a real desire for these types of events. It’s not hard to imagine people declaring their Gelfling clan like Harry Potter fans might declare themselves Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws. (I’m totally a Vapran.) If you look online, you can see people’s OCs of both Gelfling and Skeksis. Even I’ve considered putting together my own Gelfling Gathering here in Glasgow. I’m hopeful that this is a sign of things to come, and that we won’t have to wait a thousand trine for the next Great Con-Junction.

#the great con-junction #the great conjunction #the dark crystal #thamescon #london #brian froud #wendy froud #louise gold #beccy henderson #neil sterenberg #victor yerrid #skeksis #gelfling #hup #poddling #the dark crytsal: age of resistance #fizzgig #elstree studios

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sweetsmellosuccess · 4 years ago

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Sundance 2021: Day 4

Films: 4 Best Film of the Day(s): Mass

Mass: Predictably, Fran Kranz’ film opens with a shot of a church, but the title turns out to be a reverberating double entendre — both the religious service towards forgiveness; and a term commonly used in conjunction with a multiple-homicide shooting event. The church, Episcopal it turns out, is the agreed-to meeting place for two sets of grieving parents: Gail (Martha Plimpton) and Jay (Jason Isaacs), whose teen son Evan was killed some years before in a high-school massacre; and Linda (Ann Down) and Richard (Reed Birney), whose son, Haden, was the shooter, before killing himself in the school library. They have agreed to meet, long after the lawsuits and legal wrangling have been settled, to possibly provide answers and solace to one another. As can be expected, the atmosphere is fraught with tension — a setting Kranz, an actor making his directorial and writing debut, expertly mines before the couples arrive, with a kind but overenthusiastic church administrator (Breeda Wool), fretting about the details of the food arrangement — and the couples, wary, at first, of letting things get hostile, work diligently to avoid disagreement by staying mild (an arrangement of flowers Linda brings is speculated upon a great deal). Eventually, however, the four wounded parents get down to more brass tacks, Gail and Jay eschewing their therapist’s call for them to avoid “interrogation” questions, to get at the root of what they are after. In truth, as Kranz has the characters cannily come to understand, there are no details that shed new light, no explanations that help rectify what they’ve lost, only a grim understanding that, as parents, they are all subject to the laws of chaos and chance. Unsurprisingly, Kranz has an actorly sense of conflict and explication, but, despite the limited setting (this could easily have been an adapted play), he gives his actors plenty of room with which to work, and the quartet are more than up to the task. They are each terrific, and given opportunity to shine, but it’s Plimpton’s monologue near the end about her son that becomes the film's singular tour-de-force moment, a scene with so many hooks and edges, it sticks to you like velcro. Kranz is careful not to overstep his dramatic boundaries, difficult given the potentially melodramatic elements of the story, and allows his actors enough time to breathe so it avoids feeling polemic or preachy (an early scene with Gail and Jay in the car before they arrive is a scintillating bit of set-up, where words are spoken, but our attention, like that of the characters, is entirely elsewhere). No easy answers, thankfully, just brutal realizations that can’t be avoided.

A Glitch in the Matrix: By this time, documentary filmmaker Rodney Ascher has carved out a sort of niche for himself: As with Room 237, and The Nightmare, he has gathered up fringe thinkers displaying a sort of group psychosis in order to explore other ways of seeing, and interpreting, our world. His docs don’t come down on either side of a given conundrum — are any of the far-out, would-be explanations of The Shining in 237 the least bit sensible? Is it possible in The Nightmare for people experiencing the horror of sleep paralysis to share in the same horrific vision? — but he carefully doesn’t contradict any of his subjects either. His new film, an exploration of what’s known as “simulation theory,” concerns a pattern of thought described back in 1977 by the heavily adapted science fiction author Philip K. Dick during an appearance in France, suggesting, Matrix-style, that all that we think we see and know is actually an intricate virtual reality, brought to us by an unseen technological force. True to his form, Ascher interviews numerous applicants to the theory — many of whom portrayed by VR avatars in their own homes — including scholars, practitioners, and skeptics, and bolstering their arguments with an assortment of other media, from Minecraft, Philip K. Dick-based films, and crude computer animations, to video games, and youtube videos. The views are intentionally conflictive — one subject suggests the very idea of such conflict is the basis of the simulation — and anything but conclusive, but, of course, that’s the very point. Less unsettling than The Nightmare, one of the few true horror movies of the documentary genre I’ve ever seen, save for the account of Joshua Cooke, who pled guilty to killing his parents in cold blood after cementing his belief that the ideas portrayed in The Matrix were completely real. Listening to his step-by-step description, from prison, of his descent into madness, and where those impulses took him, is to drop into first-person shooter psychosis.

Coming Home in the Dark: Both Australia and New Zealand are blessed with spectacularly beautiful land that is filled with wide-open, terrifying vast spaces in which any amount of evil may lurk. In dark, violent films like Wolf Creek and Killing Ground, all that beauty and space is turned on its head by far more chaotic inclinations, rendering brutally effective, and stomach-churning sadism as a means of displaying the horrible duality of the land. Kiwi director James Ashcroft attempts to add to this cinematic legacy with this film, a murder-abduction sort of thriller, in which a family on a camping trip in the wilds, is brutalized by a pair of killers they come across. In a twist that at least one of the killers, Mandrake (Daniel Gillies) would have us believe is a coincidence, it turns out the patriarch of the family, Alan (Erik Thompson), used to teach at the abusive orphanage school in which both Mandrake, and his partner, Tubbs (Matthias Luafutu) suffered as children. It’s not a believable conceit, which Ashcroft seems to readily admit, but because it makes the connection, the film attempts to work as a kind of metaphor for the violence which we didn’t perpetrate, but also did nothing to stop. Mandrake as an avenging angel, foisting Alan’s lack of empathy back onto him in violent spades. It’s difficult to fault a film for not being transgressive and shocking enough, exactly, but despite the theatrics of the situation, and Mandrake’s coldly comic engaging of the couple in “regular conversation,” it doesn’t have the heart to be as effective and unsettling as it needs to be. It plays it too safe, which saves the audience from being plunged into the all-too-realistic terror of, say, Killing Ground, but also dilutes the stronger point it wants to make about systemic brutality.

The Blazing World: Related to the 17th Century Margaret Cavendish novel in basic concept, Carlson Young’s feature debut walks a wobbly line between linear narrative, and neo-gothic opera — only with a soundtrack instead of singing. The story concerns a young woman, Margaret (Carlson), who loses her twin sister to a drowning accident as a child, but has imagined ever since that her sister lives in some alternate vortex of reality, heralded by a grinning demon, Leonid (Udo Kier, of course). Coming back to her childhood home before her battling parents (Dermot Mulroney and Vinessa Shaw) move out altogether, Margaret meets some old friends, does some drugs, and finally enters the fantasia-like world that Leonid has been beckoning her to for most of her life in order to find her trapped sister. There, she must amass a series of keys, plucking them from demon versions of her parents, and confront her own guilt and pain in order to unlock her twin and set everyone free. It would be easy to say Young’s reach far exceeds her grasp, but the fact that she was willing to attempt such an audacious project says something about her artistic chops. And for every moment that hits wrong, there are several more that work in interesting ways. Her aforementioned use of music, and sound design invokes a kind of Kubrickian aesthetic, and her commitment to her vision is palpable. This likely won’t be the best film she ever makes, but it does portend to a filmmaker worth keeping an eye on, going forward.

Sundance goes mostly virtual for this year’s edition, sparing filmgoers the altitude, long waits, standing lines, and panicked eating binges — but also, these things and more that make the festival so damn endearing. In any event, Sundance via living room is still a hell of a lot better than no Sundance. A daily report.

#sweet smell of success #ssos #piers marchant #films #movies #sundance 2021 #Film festival #virtual #mass #the blazing world #a glitch in the matrix #coming home in the dark

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catsafarithewriter · 4 years ago

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Day 4: Musical

A/N: This is, unusually, a Natori & Cat King ficlet, exploring the chaos of double retirement, inspired (and referencing) the song: “If I Were A Jolly Blacksmith” from the musical TV show: Galavant. (Hence posting it on Musical day) I’ve really enjoyed this, so maybe I’ll write more on the retired concept. Who knows?

Also, a big shout out to @linchxpin for very kindly allowing me to play with their headcanons for Natori’s past!

Natori took to retirement like a landlocked duck took to the sea. That is to say, once he figured he wasn’t in any major danger of drowning, he wondered why he hadn’t retired years ago.

Of course, the core reason was the cat who had retired alongside him.

Regardless, the switch from working cat to retiree was aided by two factors. The first was simply that he was tired. If the Cat Kingdom had possessed a functioning economy, the thought: “I don’t get paid enough for this” would have passed through his head multiple times a day. Since it hadn’t, his brain had substituted the thought for a swan-like state - graceful and smooth on the surface, and incoherent confused babbling beneath.

And the second reason was that not much had fundamentally changed. He still had an irresponsible, power-crazed old cat to kittensit, only now when the irresponsible, power-crazed old cat decreed that Tuesdays would now be known as Second Mondays, Natori could pat the ex-king’s paw and go, “Maybe not, Sire,” instead of having to change all the palace calendars and politely ask the servants to play along for the next month.

(Early into his tenure as a royal advisor, he had taken to bribing the servants into backing up the ruse. Later in his career, he had realised that the King’s attention span didn’t stretch far enough for him to realise that Tuesdays still existed outside the palace.)

But while Natori was like a duck in the ocean of retirement, the ex-king was more akin to a stone.

Natori wasn’t sure what had possessed him to agree to the ex-king crashing in on his retirement plans, except that old habits die hard and he had felt that Lune would benefit from his father being out of meddling range, but agree he had.

Anyway, Natori had managed for... too many years to count. He could manage a little longer. At least until the ex-king found some direction.

And so the two palace cats had found themselves in Natori’s kittenhood home, out in the edges of the Cat Kingdom and squarely in the mouse belt. (That stretch of scrub land dominated by villages which had risen out of mouse husbandry, and whose yearly highlight was the annual scarecrow contest.)

In such a village, there wasn’t much use for an ex-king, not unless he could harvest catnip, or sheer a rabbit, or wrangle a mouse, and the ex-king definitely wasn’t one of such persuasion.

(He had watched, with some horrified fascination, as a butcher skinned one such mouse in the shop window, and had briefly sworn himself to vegetarianism until Natori had politely reminded him that cats were obligate carnivores, and then repeated the explanation with smaller words.)

As such, lately the ex-king had turned to contemplation - a markedly foreign concept to the cat for whom “reconsideration” was a survey of side courses. Natori had even found him once in the library. A scary enough situation even before one considered that the ex-king hadn’t known where the palace library was located in all his years living there.

He had asked Natori’s advice on words such as “self actualisation” and “inner peace,” at which point Natori had confiscated the book and distracted him with the golf club their neighbour had made for him.

It wasn’t that Natori was against cats reaching self actualisation or inner peace. In theory, it sounded all very nice and relaxing. But after a lifetime trying to gently steer his monarch away from stupid ideas and sometimes even succeeding, Natori had learnt to trust his gut. And he knew that the ex-king would take such ideas and run completely in the wrong direction with them and probably start a few fires in the process - not all figurative ones, either.

And the point of all this was that when “Young Gizmo Junior” came running over bellowing “Mr Natori! Mr Natori!” Natori knew exactly who was at the centre of whatever chaos he was about to be dragged into.

Young Gizmo Junior, a runt of a tabby who had yet to grow into his paws, fumbled up to the cottage’s porch with the kind of frenzied energy that comes from being torn away from interesting happenings. “Come quick, Mr Natori,” the kitten gasped. “It’s your friend!”

Natori lowered the cross-stitch he had finally been making progress on, and felt his heart dip along with it. “Oh no. What has he done now? Is it the mice? The rabbits? Please tell me he hasn’t fallen into the salmon river again--”

“No, Mr Natori, it’s worse. He’s singing!”

Natori blinked. "But he doesn’t sing,” Natori said. “At least,” he amended, “not while sober.”

‘Please don’t let it be catnip wine again, please don’t let it be catnip wine again, please don’t let it be catnip wine again,’ his mind chanted, ever hopeful that he had developed magic wishing powers since the last time he had fervently wished for a saner life. (Last Second Monday.)

It was not catnip wine.

It was somehow worse.

Natori slowly leaned over to Young Gizmo Junior and whispered, “And how long has he been at this?”

“He was on the...” Young Gizmo Junior counted on his claws and scrunched up his face when he surpassed his last easily countable claw, “eleventeenth verse when Grandpa told me to fetch you.”

Natori raised both eyebrows and nearly unsettled his spectacles in the process. “This is bad.”

“What’s he doing?” Young Gizmo Junior asked.

“I’ve heard of this before. He’s on the third stage of Searching For Himself.”

“Why does he need to search for himself? He’s right there.”

“You know that and I know that,” Natori said, “but cats who go searching for themselves don’t. The first stage is talking to oneself, the second is staring into the nearest water source--”

“Grandpa said he was staring at the well funny--”

“--and the third is bursting into song,” Natori continued. He couldn’t remember the next step, but that was mostly because the ex-king had begun another verse, and Natori’s mind had tapped out.

“If I were a jolly blacksmith,

What a happy cat I’d be,” the ex-king crooned, rounding towards Old McGregor’s workshop.

“I would do all kinds of blacksmith stuff in my blacksmithery...

“I’d hit the thing... with the other thing.

“Till I made a different thing!

“If I were a jolly blacksmith...”

The ex-king trailed off, and if Natori hadn’t been assured that this was the eleventeenth verse, he might well have believed that that would be the end of it. But the ex-king didn’t know the meaning of defeat - mostly because the Cat Kingdom didn’t have dictionaries - and so, after a little bit of muttering (that Natori caught the tail end of “No, I’m not feeling it. Besides, I’d get filthy. There must be something better”) he perked up and made a beeline for Maggie’s meat pie stand.

“If I were a friendly farmer,

“Wouldn’t that be oh so sweet?

“I’d be planting greens and lots of beans,

“And other things to eat.

“Then I’d plant some eggs, and a couple mice,

“Then a yummy salmon cake!”

The ex-king paused, vaguely aware somewhere in the recesses of his kittenhood education that it didn’t quite work that way.

(”No,” he muttered, “that’s not right,” and Natori briefly thought there was hope yet. Then the ex-king continued with, “Any moron can plant a cake,” and the farmer upbringing in Natori cringed.)

Natori leaned over to Young Gizmo Junior. “Why can I hear a pipe playing?”

“That’s Uncle Saburo,” the kitten replied cheerfully. “He’s really good!”

“He’s also encouraging someone who needs no encouragement. Trust me.”

“I want to be special,” the ex-king continued, undeterred from the whispered conversations. “Needed. Liked. I’ve got it!” he cried, and made a dash for Rosie’s valerian wine shop front.

(Part of Natori knew he should stop this. The other part really wanted to see how this worked out. Historically, the latter was a bad idea, but Natori put it down to shock.)

“If I were a merry brewer,

“That would be a grand career,

“I would pick the grapes and peel the grapes

“And stomp them into catnip beer-- dammit!”

The ex-king slumped down onto a convenient crate, which Rosie suddenly decided she didn’t need right now. “I don’t know how to do anything but be a king,” he lamented. “And no one wants me to be a king.”

“Mr Natori,” Young Gizmo Junior piped up, “shouldn’t you go help your friend?”

“Not yet,” Natori said. “Let him finish first.”

“Why?”

“Because one does not interrupt a cat when he’s singing an existential crisis song,” Natori replied firmly.

“If I’m just a jolly... nothing,

“What am I supposed to do?

“I don’t have a skill, no niche to fill,

“No one to come home to.”

Natori had a sink full of dirty dishes that argued otherwise.

“Don’t know where to go,

“Don’t know how to fit,

“Don’t know who to even be.

“If I were a jolly tailor... juggler... barber... wet nurse... cesspool worker...”

The ex-king sighed and shook his head. “What difference does it make? I would still be me...”

Natori waited a moment longer. When the last echoes of Uncle Saburo’s pipe playing had died away, he sighed and approached the aged cat. “Sire?”

“Go away Natori,” the ex-king grumbled. “I’m brooding.”

Natori didn’t go away. He waited a moment longer, just until the other cat’s ears began to twitch. He could read his old monarch’s tempers better than he could read his father’s book on Mouse Husbandry.

“Brooding’s rather boring, isn’t it, sire?”

The ex-king scowled. “Yeah.”

“Do you want go down to the Mouse’s Tale pub and see if we can convince Chaucer to let you try darts again? Maybe you’ll even hit the wall this time.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”

Stage four of Searching For Yourself, Natori decided, was getting yourself uproariously drunk.

If the rest of the evening was anything to go by, the ex-king agreed.

#day 4 musical #tcr birthday bash 2019 #the cat returns #tcr birthday bash 2020 #the cat queues #cat writes #the misadventures of royal retirement #aka my name so far for retired natori and CK #also there's a king in faerie tale theatre's Princess and the Pea who makes mad decrees and nobody listens #and that's basically become one of my little headcanons #like technically the cat kingdom has a lot of insane decrees #but they're not really used #decrees are more like a doodling board for the kings' consciousnesses #rather than actual lavvs #after this at least three old cats ask natori about getting the CK to sing in the village choir

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4dorks-1windmage-1shadow · 5 years ago

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The Links as D&D Characters, Part 5: Shadow Link

Inspired by a question I saw on @hauntinghyrule ‘s blog. My character analysis and thoughts on what character class the boys would be if they were D&D characters, and why. Also! @atinybitweird has been drawing the boys D&D designs, and she’s doing really great! I’ll link to her posts on the individual analysis as well as reblog them here so look out for those : D

Green / Red / Blue / Vio / Vaati / FS Zelda

As a preface, there won’t be any doubles on classes except in the case of dual-classing, and in those cases the first class I talk about my justifications for will be the primary class (i.e. the class they would have chosen at level one). My choices will be based on the character theming and personalities, even though at a base level it would be easy to say “they’re all paladins, duh” because of the implied “holy knight chosen by the gods to eradicate evil” concept. For Shadow, there are plenty of shadowy-themed D&D subclasses to choose from. Kaenith mentioned Way of the Shadow Monk in his initial answer on his blog which is actually not a bad pick for him. However, I wouldn’t initially say that Monk is the class for Shadow, because he’s shown relying on magic much more than martial arts (like a Monk would) or even swordplay (like the other Links). He has a sword in the manga, but I think it’s mostly for show- a visual parallel to Link, who does use his sword to fight. This is just a small part of the big reason why I’ve chosen the particular classes and subclasses I have for Shadow, so lets look at the reason as a whole: Shadow’s origin, and how it ties well into the Sorcerer class.

The Four Swords manga and the Four Swords games don’t give us a lot of information about how Shadow Link was created (if he was born vs conjured like Dark Link) and also what exactly the Shadow Realm is. We never actually see the realm that Shadow came from (except for the Erune arc in the manga, and only a small town) so we have no idea if it is a true shadow version of Hyrule, like the Dark World/Lorule (if you believe they’re the same place) are. Furthermore we don’t see any evidence that there are others like Shadow Link, like we do with Lorule with Ravio being a parallel to Link and Hilda being a parallel to Princess Zelda. There’s nothing pointing to the idea that Shadow was born and raised the way a normal kid would be, and so the most logical conclusion canon-wise is that he was literally conjured from Link’s shadow. Magic would be weaved into every fiber of Shadow’s being, and we see this evidenced in the manga because he wields it naturally and easily against the Links. Sorcerers in D&D can be born as well as made, but the key thing that separates the magic sorcerers use from the magic used by wizards, bards, druids, clerics, and warlocks is that a sorcerers magic is innate, often carried through a bloodline or via transforming from the latent energy of a place. In this case, Shadow was literally made with the arcane magic he controls. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything introduced a Sorcerous Origin called Shadow Magic where the arcane magic is sourced from the Shadowfell (i.e. Shadow Realm for authenticity to Zelda), either through being exposed to and transformed by the energy of the place or from being descended from a denizen; neither of these situations are applicable to Shadow BUT I think being created from the source magic should and does count. The majority of Sorcerer abilities come from their Sorcerous Origin, but there are two features that all sorcerers regardless of origin gain that I think fit Shadow based on his story in the manga. Font of Magic and Metamagic can be linked to the Dark Mirror being Shadow’s source of life and magical power because of the abilities that Shadow is able to display while being linked to it. Font of Magic gives Shadow access to Sorcery Points, which he can spend to create new spell slots, or sacrifice spell slots to gain more sorcery points which effectively translates to giving himself more power to wield in battle. Metamagic lets him twist the magic of his spells to suit his own needs, using sorcery points to do so. It can let him double the range of spells, double the spells’ duration, potentially do more damage on a hit and target more than one opponent with a ranged spell that normally only targets one creature. I’m choosing to translate this as him getting a boost in power and flexibility that he normally wouldn’t have without the power of the Dark Mirror (though depending on your interpretation of post-manga shenanigans he could have these abilities anyway because of whatever method brought him back allowed him to have them). Back to Shadow Magic though. Thematically it makes the most sense: Shadow Link is created from shadow magic and thus is a Shadow Magic Sorcerer. But the abilities here are what we want to look at to see if it really fits. At 1st level, Shadow Magic gives Shadow a darkvision range of 120 feet, and the Strength of the Grave ability means he can charm his way out of death. That’s not entirely accurate- the actual text says he can take a Charisma saving throw and attempt to equal or exceed a target number equal to 5 + [amount of damage taken], and drop to 1 hit point instead of 0 if he succeeds. I think this makes sense- if he’s a shadow, he’d be able to slip out of battle or narrowly avoid life-threatening attacks just by the art of deception; this isn’t necessarily supported by the Sorcerer class itself, but if you mix the game canon into the manga canon, Shadow can technically clone himself and use those copies to his advantage. At 3rd level, he learns the Darkness spell without it counting against the amount of spells he knows, and he can cast it with either sorcery points or a spell slot (he can see through the effected area of the spell if he casts it using sorcery points). At 6th level, he can spend sorcery points to summon a shadow creature that effectively acts like an attack dog, which he can sic on a creature within 120 feet of him. Shadow is shown leading an army of monsters in the manga, so the Hound of Ill Omen feature actually lends itself well to that image- maybe one of the creatures he used to attack Hyrule Castle was his magically summoned shadow hound. It isn’t that far-fetched of an assumption to make. Shadow Walk lets him teleport through darkness and dim light up to a distance of 120 feet, which is an ability he already portrays in the manga and in the games. The only Shadow Magic ability he doesn’t get to benefit from is Umbral Form, and that’s because I want to call a parallel to Link that I think is fitting for Shadow’s role as his foil in the story. Shadow is not a copy of Link- I don’t want anyone to get confused by what I’m saying. However, he is still Link’s shadow, the reflection of everything Link could have become if he wasn’t the hero, didn’t grow up with all the people around him who loved him and supported him. Shadow’s main motivation in the story is loneliness and the desire to be recognized, but who is going to recognize him if he doesn’t make himself recognizable? I talked at length in my analysis of Green’s class about how Paladins take oaths that serve as pillars for their conduct and core beliefs as paladins, but what happens if you don’t have any of those beliefs or you did have them but chose to cast them away? In the Dungeon Master’s Guide, it describes a class option for Paladins called the Oathbreaker: essentially a paladin who has abandoned or broke their sacred oaths. Shadow probably never had any oaths to begin with, but he wanted to be recognized the way Link was, and so I think he chose to take the mantle of Paladin without really understanding what makes Link (Green) a true Paladin. He has to take at least 3 levels in Paladin to subclass as Oathbreaker, and that unlocks light and medium armor, shields and all weapons for him to use in combat. It also unlocks spells like Hellish Rebuke, Inflict Wounds, and if he takes up to 5th level in Paladin, the Crown of Madness spell. He still gets all of the normal Paladin abilities, but his Channel Divinity options are kind of the opposite of Green’s: He can control undead creatures with it, or use Dreadful Aspect to create an aura of fear around himself with a radius of up to 30 feet. Depending on how you look at the option of Shadow being redeemable, there is an option for Oathbreaker Paladins to “atone” for their evil actions as an Oathbreaker. They lose the Oathbreaker features and gain the features of a Sacred Oath, and I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to his character journey than him becoming an Oath of Vengeance Paladin from the Player’s Handbook. It lets him fill a different niche of paladin than Green does, and takes his character into account in regards to the Tenets of Vengeance: Fight the Greater Evil (Faced with a choice of fighting my sworn foes or combating a lesser evil, I choose the greater evil). No Mercy for the Wicked (Ordinary foes might win my mercy, but my sworn enemies do not.) By Any Means Necessary (My qualms can’t get in the way of exterminating my foes) Restitution (If my foes wreak ruin on the world, it is because I failed to stop them. I must help those harmed by their misdeeds) Taking Oath of Vengeance in this way would replace Hellish Rebuke, Inflict Wounds and Crown of Madness with Bane, Hunter’s Mark, Hold Person and Misty Step, and the Channel Divinity features include Abjure Enemy (inflicting fear on a targeted creature) and Vow of Enmity (basically pointing at an enemy and saying “I choose you” and then he gets to attack them with advantage for a minute [10 rounds of combat]). In conclusion, Shadow ends up as a dual-classed Shadow Magic Sorcerer/Oathbreaker Paladin (later changing to Oath of Vengeance Paladin to account for character growth).

#I like the fact that paladin has the option to go apeshit and evil #and likewise change from evil and apeshit to following some sort of moral code #none of the other classes have that distinction #i mean i GUESS you could change your wizard school if you thought that Divination wasn't working for you but you'd like to try Illusion b/c #that's basically the equivalent of changing your major #but you couldn't do that with sorcerer #i think it would only work if you and your dm really hashed out WHY said character would make such a huge choice to switch patrons or gods #or fighter types or whatever else #but with paladin there are actual rules #sorry im gay for dungeons and dragons #four swords #shadow link #character analysis #dungeons and dragons

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doubleddenden · 4 months ago

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I had a thought about Pokemon- "oh when don't you?" I hear some of you say. I'll have you know I have been hyper fixating on Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic 06 this past week, so the answer is surprisingly "not always!"

But back on track, I had a thought regarding 2026, aka the 30th anniversary and MOST LIKELY when gen 10 drops, since they've consistently dropped a new gen every 10 years so far.

You know what's another consistent thing they've done on the 10th and 20th anniversary gens? Nostalgia. Well, Pokemon marketing has really crunk up nostalgia since gen 6, but it was especially thick during 4th and 7th gens.

4th gen brought a bunch of cross Gen evolutions and pre evolutions to the table, even dropped a new Regi on us. 7th gen didn't really bring those- instead it went for a more direct approach with regional variants being introduced exclusively for gen 1 Pokemon, on top of Kanto constantly being brought up in conversation and Alolan lore and even the return of Red and Blue themselves. 2016 was also the year they dropped PoGo to lather on an extra helping of gen 1 nostalgia (which was already kinda high given XY and ORAS introduced new Kanto Megas- especially the starters- and gave Eevee a new Eeveelution in Sylveon).

Anyway, if we follow this trend, and use common sense, i think it'll be safe to say they'll be milking nostalgia a bit more than usual. So what can we expect?

It's theorized gen 10 will be in Australia due to the painting of Uluru being seen in Hassel's classroom. It would make sense, Australia is basically a living Pokemon region already but rated M, basically it'd be easy to turn lots of the animals there into Pokemon as long as they don't stop to try and give each one a job like they usually do. Australia is a longtime fan requested region, and it has a layout that would easily transition into a region map.

However, there's something else interesting regarding the wildlife: lots of Marsupials and other unique animals that fit into similar environments seen in other regions.

You could say these are Convergent Species- animals that adopt traits similar to a different species to survive in the same environment. The Thylacine, aka the Tasmanian Wolf/Tiger, is an extinct 4 legged marsupial with traits similar to a canine that farmers basically hunted to extinction because they kept killing their sheep. You could even directly call it a convergent species to the Dingo, an actual native wild canine species that fills a similar niche. I might be missing some bits or maybe I got some terminology or definitions mixed up, but I think you get the picture here.

Pokemon Convergents are a little different- with exceptions to Sinistcha and Poltchageist, it would seem that it's basically using the same body plan to survive in a different environment, such is the case with Tentacool and Toedscool, but the ideas are still there to be worked with.

Australia, if chosen as the 10th gen region, would actually be the first region in the SOUTHERN hemisphere. Basically, it's off on its own, separated by incredible distance from other mainline regions (apparently just narrowly beat out by America when it comes to average flight time to and from Japan, but consider we/Unova are closer to the European regions than Japan).

So all this preamble to say: I think a hefty chunk of the gen 10 Pokestralia dex will be comprised of Convergent Species and Regional Variants, maybe a marriage of the two and something akin to whatever happened with the Paradoxes and BM Ursaluna. Tbh, I'd rather have a fresh dex of mostly new Pokemon, but if we contribute nostalgia as a factor, it's not entirely off the table to consider that, for the 30th anniversary, they decide to do maybe 20 to 50 or more lines as part of a "best of" bit where they essentially revamp old favs again. We've already seen that they're willing to stretch what it means to get a regional variant with exclusive evolutions and even allowing MULTIPLE variants in one region, and as far as we can tell, they've already stretched the term by basically making a regional variant of Sinistea/Poltchageist and Polteageist/Sinistcha and swapping the names around. Basically, nothing is off the table going forward.

So for instance, convergent Kanto starters (like water Charmander, a fire Bulbasaur, a grass Squirtle, etc), a convergent Pikachu and Meowth line where they basically swap species, maybe a regional Cubone line that converges with a convergent Kangaskhan or a regional Sharpedo that evolves into a convergent Garchomp, maybe convergent Lucario and Zoroark- you get the idea here. Essentially a "who's who" of popular Pokemon from past gens in THEIR eyes.

I think they'd probably toss these in with new Pokemon, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a BUNCH like this when it comes up.

#pokemon #Pokemon gen 10 #dd's theory corner

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sustraiii · 4 years ago

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TEAM ZRCN ARC 3 - CHAPTER 5

Depression hour has arrived.

Helia reveals what went down on Shizukana to a confused Team ZRCN, and a new recurring character finally makes her long awaited appearance.

Many thanks to @neopoliitan for offering to proof read once again.

XANTHOS

The group had headed out to Cordovan’s home in Mantle after a quick call to Professor Velour to confirm that the Sabyrs had been dealt with and give her a brief rundown over what was happening. It was hard to ignore Helia’s warning.

“You’re in danger.”

But danger from what exactly? Xanthos was desperate for someone to ask, but even he had deemed it inappropriate to press the issue - especially given the urgency in Helia’s voice when she had requested somewhere safe to talk.

Depending on who or what they were in danger of, going to Cordovan’s house might not have been the safest idea in hindsight, but it was their best option outside of the Academy - which wasn’t exactly private.

Xanthos came to a halt as they approached, having spotted someone sitting on the steps leading up to the porch, and made a show of pointing them out. “Um, who is that?”

“Who are you talking about?” Cordovan questioned as he pushed forward to get a better look. His confused expression quickly furrowed to a more annoyed one as he let out an exasperated sigh, “Rosie…”

Stepping ahead of the group commandingly, Cordovan approached the young girl who was sitting on the steps. Her head was buried in a magazine, but when she heard someone approach she looked up immediately - a glare of suspicion swiftly softening with apparent recognition.

“Hi Corduroy, what are you doing here?” She asked cheerfully, jumping to her feet.

“What are you doing here, Rosie?” Cordovan fired back, folding his arms as he spoke. “Shouldn’t you be staying at Mrs Clearwater’s house?”

“I should,” Rosie confirmed with a sly smile. “But she smells funny and I don’t like the way her cat looks at me. It looked like it was going to eat me. Probably could too, the ugly thing was big enough.”

Cordovan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “So what was the plan here, Rosie - were you just going to wait for me or my mom to come home and maybe freeze in the process, or was it something else?”

Rosie looked up at him blankly before shrugging her shoulders. “I dunno. I didn’t think that far ahead.”

As he and the others closed the distance between them and their teammate, Xanthos was struck at the similarities between Cordovan and the girl; both of them shared the same messy reddish-brown hair, brown eyes and fair complexion. The only notable difference was the girl had freckles, while Cordovan did not. She wore a slightly oversized flannel shirt, half tucked into a pair of cropped, faded jeans.

Sensing the two could have gone back and forth for a while, Xanthos stepped up and interrupted the pair with a light cough. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” he asked.

Cordovan hesitated for a moment, and Xanthos saw him glance nervously towards Rosie, who in turn met his gaze. “This is Rosie. She’s my, uh, cousin -- from my dad’s side... hence the hair.”

The girl looked down at the concrete between her white canvas shoes. “Yeah, what he said - we’re... cousins.”

“Anyway,” Cordovan cut in, looking around at the gathered party and withdrawing a key from his pocket. “Shall we go inside?”

He unlocked the door and the six of them all shuffled inside. Cordovan made a brief, mumbled comment about making some drinks for everyone, then swiftly disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, closely watched by Rosie. As they waited for Cordovan, the four of them headed to the living room to make themselves comfortable, though no one seemed in much of a hurry to sit down.

This wasn’t the first time Xanthos had been in Cordovan’s home, but it was the first time he had noted some subtle changes. It remained as cluttered as ever, but it appeared as though there had been a conscious effort to at least neaten things up. Books that had once taken up nearly all the spare space in the living room had now been neatly stacked on newly built shelves. Niche decorative items that had once filled the mantlepiece were now replaced with more tasteful decor though Xanthos noted a small pink cat figure lingered behind, and he assumed that was at the behest of Rosie. He wondered if many of the changes were due to her presence around the home, as opposed to general desire of wanting the place to look tidier.

Silence filled the room for what felt like several minutes. It was not interrupted by Cordovan’s return, but instead by heavy breathing coming from the doorway. Instinctively turning to face the source of the noise, Xanthos saw the girl - Rosie - stood there, staring intently at Helia.

“You’re Helia Vines.” It was said as less of a question and more of a statement. Xanthos wondered if she hadn’t paid much attention as to who was present when talking to the Cordovan.

“Yes, I am.” Helia confirmed, with a small nod.

Rosie let out a little squeak of excitement before she started babbling incredibly fast, an action which Xanthos could only describe as fangirling of the most extreme kind. When she had finished rambling, she seemed to settle, and directed a question at the veteran huntress in a more restrained tone. “Would you sign my doll?”

“Sure.”

Clearly thrilled at the response, Rosie did a small fist pump before turning on the spot and darting upstairs - likely to retrieve the aforementioned doll.

Once the girl had left the room and was out of earshot, Helia turned to Xanthos, Neela and Zelde and gave them a nervous smile. “You know I’ve had a lot of merchandise made for me, but I don’t remember dolls being one of them.”

“She reminds me of my sister.” Xanthos said softly, a faint smile forming on his lips as he thought of Marisol. It had been a long time since he had spoken to her - with the CCT being down - but he hoped she and their mother were okay.

“Don’t tell me your sister owned potentially creepy homemade dolls too.” Neela teased.

“I was referring to the enthusiasm actually, Nee,” Xanthos responded with a wink. “But if you must know, Marisol prefers plushies.”

Cordovan reappeared carrying in a tray of drinks for them all. He seemed to time his reappearance poorly - Rosie also reappeared at the exact same time, nearly tripping him up as she tried to jump ahead of him.

“Rosie!” Cordovan exclaimed, only just managing to keep his balance. Xanthos lifted himself slightly out of his seat to aid his friend - a reflex informed by Cordovan’s recent handicap - but the other student righted himself. He stepped further into the living room and set down the tray on the coffee table, before turning to face his cousin.

“What were you doing running in front of me like that? Surely you could see me coming.”

“Helia said she’d sign my doll!” Rosie responded, quickly showing everyone the doll in question. In truth, it wasn’t as bad as Xanthos had been expecting; he could at least see what the doll was meant to be. If Helia had electric green hair and disproportionate limbs, it might have been a perfect match.

“You can do that later,” Cordovan said, trying to usher her away. “We’ve got grown-up things to talk about.”

Rosie had been co-operating until he referred to her age, which prompted her to stop and put her hands on her hips. “I’m eight, not seven!” She chided. “You don’t have to speak to me like a child.”

“I’m not - “ Cordovan paused to groan. “I didn’t mean it like that. Listen, I’m not trying to be rude, but there really is something urgent we need to talk about. Something that you don’t need to hear right now. When we’re done you’re welcome to come and pester us again.”

“Do you promise?” She batted her eyelashes at him expectantly.

He seemed taken aback by this question before shrugging his shoulders. “I guess so. I made you a hot chocolate if you-”

“Does it have marshmallows in it?” Rosie asked, suddenly perking up with interest. She had already begun to move towards the table, eyeing up a pink cup as she approached.

“No, it doesn’t have marshmallows in it.”

By the time Rosie had turned to respond she had already grabbed the cup with her spare hand. “Well, next time you owe me marshmallows -- but I’ll let it slide as your friends are here.” She smirked. Running past him and hurrying out of the room, she called to the others. “Bye Corduroy! Bye Corduroy’s friends!”

“‘Corduroy’, huh?” Xanthos mused, scratching his chin as he spoke. “I may have to use that.”

“Please, don’t.” Cordovan said, shooting him a warning glance before he eventually took a seat in one of the armchairs like Helia, with the rest of ZRCN once again huddling onto the sofa. There were a few minutes of awkward silence before Zelde got the ball rolling on why Helia had been so urgent to find somewhere to talk.

“What did you mean when you said we were in danger?”

Helia shifted uncomfortably in her seat, leaning forward to grab her drink. She traced a finger around the rim of the cup before looking up. “Do you remember what happened when we confronted Farron on Shizukana?”

Save for Cordovan, everyone else in the room had been present during the final confrontation with Farron’s people. It had been over six months now, but the event was still easily recallable to Xanthos. After a moment, he, Zelde, and Neela all nodded their heads, allowing Helia to continue.

“Do you remember what Wisteria said to him?” She asked. “Her ‘reveal’.”

“She said she didn’t work for him…” Zelde’s voice trailed off softly, already beginning to understand what Helia was trying to say. Xanthos was a bit slower on the draw.

“The people she worked for are the ones who are after us?” He questioned, looking to Helia for confirmation. “But why? We didn’t do anything to them! If anything, I got the impression we’d helped them take out a competitor of sorts. Why would they want to hurt us?” There was a brief pause before he quickly added, “Did they send the robots? Why?”

“Because you know too much.” Helia said.

Neela snorted a little. “Do we? I thought this was all resolved.”

“So did I,” Helia agreed before Xanthos noted her crumpling into her chair. It was only then he noticed how defeated she seemed in that moment. “But I was wrong.”

It was Cordovan who dared to ask the final question. “What happened, Helia?”

The huntress sniffed loudly, tears forming in her eyes. “My team and I had been talking about reuniting for months - a few weeks ago we finally agreed to meet up on Shizukana. It was the first time we were all in a room together after we went our separate ways... I was so excited to see them all again. It was only our third night when it all went wrong.”

She lowered her head and took a long steadying breath before looking back up at them. “The real people Wisteria was working for decided to make an appearance - Wisteria, too - and they literally blew apart Leyla’s house. Leyla herself was knocked out, and the rest of us were dazed but we could still fight. Anthea and I tried to hold off two unknown attackers, but they were stronger and got the upper hand on us. Alcyone was the only one left standing by the end. We told her to stop and give up, that fighting would get us nowhere, but she was always stubborn - always thought she knew best.”

Helia looked away, and Xanthos noted she had a pained smile. “Then a white-haired bitch skewered her with a spear.” She revealed grimly.

“Fucking hell,” Xanthos cursed aloud.

Helia was beginning to cry, but she was too determined to finish her story to succumb to tears. “I should have stayed with her in those final moments. I’ll always regret that I didn't. But I was confused and angry - who were these people, why had they come here and done this to us?

“Other than Wisteria I had no connection to them, and the only thing they had told us was that the whole thing was a warning. A warning for what though? Why? Over and Over again I asked them. Eventually Wisteria knocked me aside like I was nothing and I was too weak to stand back up. She warned me against rising to my feet and I listened to her.”

She took a shaky sip from her cup. “I’d like to say the white-haired woman took some pity as she approached me, but there was no pity in those blood-red eyes. Only malice and pleasure. I think she actively enjoyed seeing me suffer. And then she told me that this was all a warning. A warning for me and Leyla, but mostly for you. Anthea and Alcyone were just a nice little ‘side dish’. They had ‘other things’ to do first but she warned me that eventually they’d come for you too. Then they just… left. By the time I got back, Alcyone was gone.”

Helia didn’t need to elaborate on what she meant - by now they all knew the fate Alcyone had succumbed to, what these foes were capable of. Xanthos had always thought Wisteria might have been one of the largest challenges they would face, but it was becoming apparent she was just a piece in a much larger puzzle.

Zelde was the first to move, rising to her feet and standing in front of the window in silence, clearly deep in thought. Cordovan had leaned forward and was running his hands through his bowed head. Xanthos and Neela were silent and unmoving, still trying to process what Helia had told them.

The silence in the room was soon filled by the increasingly loud sobbing of Helia, a sound that would have melted even the coldest of hearts. Neela was the first to rise to her feet and approach the veteran huntress, quietly wrapping her arms around her comfortingly. One by one, the rest of ZRCN followed suit; Cordovan, then Xanthos, and lastly Zelde. And that was where they stayed for a while, just holding and comforting each other, only breaking apart when Rosie finally ventured back downstairs again.

#team ZRCN #team zrcn fic #Zelde Sewick #Xanthos Ravindra #Cordovan Radcliff #Neela Oxford #helia vines #cousin rosie

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freeonlyfans · 5 years ago

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looselucy · 5 years ago

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The Only Living Boy in New York

June 14th – Harry’s POV I awoke from a restless sleep, my eyes uneasily meeting another murky morning in New York, my entire body burdened with a brazen ache. It was clear that misery loved company from the way that it clung at my side, dug its claws into my skin. I was exhausted.

In recent months, I’d gotten into the habit of instinctively turning to gage of the other side of the bed, and even though I’d been in New York for almost three weeks, and I hadn’t shared a bed with her for over a month, I still hadn’t managed to break the habit of turning to see Alfie every single morning. Coming to my senses and finding my bed empty didn’t seem to be getting any easier. Already exasperated, I turned again and reached for my phone which lay on top of my bedside cabinet to check the time, disappointed to have once again stirred at such an early hour. “For fuck sake.” I huffed, craving more sleep. I had to literally drag myself out of bed and into my bathroom, my eyes barely open as I leaned and turned on the taps to fill up the bath, leaving the water running and heading to the living area of my apartment, coffee feeling essential. I wasn’t sure why I’d ever thought that being in New York would make anything better, because it never had. All I’d known for sure was that I wanted to get out of Rosebury, start afresh, try to put that phase of my life behind me, and New York felt like the only real option I had, somewhere with enough distance but somewhere I was familiar with. I’d really thought that I would feel better once I was there, once I was settled. I didn’t. As I filled up the kettle with water, a loud buzzing noise interrupted me, someone ringing my buzzer from the street downstairs. I frowned at the idea of company, not just because I didn’t desire it but because of its unfamiliarity. I headed towards the door, pressed the button to speak between systems. “Hello?” I groaned. “It’s Liam, buzz me in.” I did as I was told, not saying another word before I pressed the button to open the door and allow him into the building where I lived. Liam was my agent. He’d been my agent for years. Liam spoke directly with galleries and clients and buyers and he was the reason my art had done as well as it had. He was alarmingly good at his job, meaning the work of a young boy just out of university had been seen as something truly special. I so easily could have been dismissed at such a young age with such little experience, but Liam had managed to make my name for me, make sure I could live a life that was far more than comfortable. When I so easily could have been shunned, Liam made it so that I was respected. I had a lot to thank him for. It took him some time to reach me due to the fact that I lived on the top floor of my building, overlooking Central Park, a few doors down from the studio I had for my art; somewhere to feel creative and somewhere I’d open up and use as a public gallery, occasionally. I’d told Liam I was back in New York around a week earlier, but he lived in the UK most of the time. I’d known it wouldn’t have been too long before he showed up, got me back into painting and selling. It was inevitable. I made us both a coffee and turned off the running water for my bath, and by the time he got there and knocked on my door, I actually felt quite good about seeing him again. It was nice to see someone I knew, a face that felt friendly and welcomed. It had been too long. “Morning!” He greeted cheerily when I opened the door. “You’re up early.” “I had an early flight. Slept all the way here. How’s things?” “Uh… Fine, yeah. Everything’s fine.” He looked as composed and well-dressed as he always did when I saw him. I’d never seen him wearing anything other than a suit; always different, always perfectly fitted and pristine. It didn’t make sense to me that he’d just gotten off an eight-hour flight, but Liam had this certain quality about him, this poise, something that assisted with his selling techniques. He was always professional. “Sure?” “Yeah. Yeah, fine. I uh- I made you a coffee. How are you?” “I’m good, cheers. Glad to see you. Glad to have you back in New York.” “Mm.” I tried my best to sound even slightly enthusiastic, but it didn’t play. I wasn’t happy there. And I was beginning to worry that I wouldn’t ever feel happy anywhere. “To be honest, I wasn’t expecting you to move back here.” “No?” I grumbled after taking a hefty sip. “No, I mean… The last time I spoke to you properly, you seemed really settled. Happy. You were in the countryside somewhere, right?” “Yeah. Up North, a place called Rosebury.” “What changed? I mean that was… a couple of months ago?” I didn’t know what to say. I liked Liam, and he’d been in my life for a long time, but we weren’t close. We were barely friends, really. He didn’t feel like someone I could share with, not that sharing ever came easily for me. I couldn’t begin to explain how my feelings had altered since I’d spoken to him on the phone that day, mere hours before my brother broke into my home. “It was… It was just time to move on.” I sighed, not willing to discuss it. “Since you’re here… we should talk work. M’gunna start painting again, sell some new stuff.” “And the Blood Sun?” He asked. I went quiet for a while, staring at him as I thought about that painting, thought about what I wanted, how it made me feel. “I… I wanna focus on new stuff right now. I can’t even think about the Blood Sun at the minute, because… The thing is, I don’t wanna paint with blood anymore.” The look on his face after I’d said that was proof that our relationship, however friendly, was strictly business. He seemed shocked, maybe even disappointed by me saying I no longer wanted to paint with blood. It was my niche, it was what had gotten people so interested in my work, a large reasoning behind why my stuff sold for as much as it did. Liam was thinking business, and me not using blood had the potential to drive down prices, which meant he earnt less. As understandable as it was, I couldn’t help but wish for more. I thought about Alfie, how she had only cared about me, my health, what using blood was doing to me and how vital it was that I stopped, found a different way of expressing my feelings through my art. She didn’t look at it as an expression, she saw it as me hurting myself and nothing more. I’d finally started to see it the same way. “Right. Okay… Shit.” He sat himself down on the stool beside him. “Are you sure? It’s a major selling point.” “One that involves… self-harm, to put it bluntly. I don’t wanna do it anymore. I can’t.” “Okay, yeah. Well… I mean, since you’ve had a break, maybe we present it as like… a new era.” He spoke his thoughts as they came to his head. “Maybe… think of something new. A new style. A new addition. Something almost to… replace the blood, y’know?” “Right. Okay, yeah.” “Different styles, different techniques. A new method. Let’s keep people interested, that’s the main thing.” “Agreed. M’glad you… get it. M’glad you understand.” “As long as you can think up something new. You got any ideas?” “Uh… Not really. I dunno, I guess I’ve… not been in that much of a creative headspace recently.” When I’d moved to Rosebury, I’d made a purposeful and conscious decision not to paint, pulling myself out of that mindset in order to save my sanity, hoping to heal. Despite a minor setback when I’d gone to New York at the end of February, the only other time I’d allowed myself to paint was when I was with Alfie, which was carefree, fun, something I didn’t really need to think about. She helped to make something that once made me miserable into something that felt good, for the first time in years. It was hard to feel creative without immediately linking that with pain. It was hard to think about Alfie without immediately linking her with pain. “Well, that’s one of the reasons I’m here, actually.” He got back to his feet, walking around the kitchen counter and approaching me, routing through his pocket. “Y’know James Caine?” “Uh… I dunno, I don’t think so.” “He’s an artist, he lives locally. Recently moved here from Manchester. He’s good. He’s talented. I work with him and he wants to meet you.” He handed me over a rather tattered piece of paper with an address scribbled onto it, my brows low as I took it from his hand before looking back up to him. “Why?” “Because you’re Harry fucking Styles.” He leered. “He likes your stuff. He wants to talk art, work, what it’s like here, how to build his name up. He’s having a party tonight, and he asked me if I could get you to go.” “M'not really… in a party mood.” “I wouldn’t expect anything too wild. Bunch’a creative types, artists, sellers, y’know.” “Mm.” If anything, that put me off even more. When I’d last been in New York fulltime, my whole life seemed to centre around events like that and I’d always hated them. There was such a lack of honesty in those rooms and within those people, too many pretences and false personalities that people created as though they thought it would suit their career, forcing who they thought they should be. People were pretentious and arrogant and self-obsessed, and it was always something I’d hated about my job and the little quirks that accompanied it. “You should go. I think it’d be good for you. Get talking about art with some interesting people, you’ll think up something for your new work in no time, I promise.” “Fine.” I sighed despondently, placing the paper down on the counter. “I probably won’t stay, but I’ll go for a while. See if it helps.” “Good choice. Right, I’ll see you there then! I’ve gotta go, I’m meeting some people. Gotta cram in as much work as possible whilst I’m here.” “How long are you here for?” I asked as I approached my sofa, resting against the back of it and folding my arms. “Couple of weeks, then back to London.” “Well… I’ll try and think something up before you go.” “Nice one.” He nodded. “Alright, I’ll see you tonight.” He was seconds away from leaving, opening the door before I managed to spit out my question, nervous and ridden with fear. “Do you know any therapists?” I rushed, speaking so quickly that what I’d said was unclear to him. “What?” He turned around to face me. “Do you… Do you know of any therapists?” I paced myself, my throat feeling swollen, almost choking over the words. “You wanna see a therapist?” He asked. “Yeah. I think… Yeah. I-I thought I remembered you saying you once saw someone, but-” “I did, but not here. It was back in the UK, a long time ago. I saw a woman called Dr Jackson for… almost two years.” “Did it help?” Whenever the mere thought of therapy had introduced itself to my mind before, I’d completely shunned it. I’d been dubious about how talking was supposed to help in some way, it hadn’t made sense to me. Talking had never felt like any sort of solution, but somehow, over time, Alfie had changed that. She encouraged me, supported me, helped me to articulate times of my life that I hadn’t been able to communicate efficiently, things I had never really spoken about. She made me realise that talking really did have the power to help, the power to change things in a positive way. I didn’t want my past to keep holding me back in the way it was. She’d helped me more than I could even begin to understand, but it hadn’t been enough. I could tell by my recent actions and feelings that it wasn’t enough. I knew something wasn’t right, and I so badly wanted to fix it in any way I could. “She really helped me, yeah. She was amazing.” Liam said. I wanted that. Needed it. As wonderful as she’d been, Alfie was not a therapist. There was only so much she could do. There was only so much I had allowed her to do. My emotions had been undistinguishable for quite some time, not at all limited to but largely surrounding how I was feeling about Alfie. I missed her so much. I was sure I’d done the right thing, but it didn’t make it any easier. I was just so sure that in the long run, I wouldn’t be any good for her. I didn’t want her to love me, because I was completely convinced that I was a bad omen, that I’d ruin it and hurt her and it would break the two of us more than it already had. I was not in the right position to give her everything she deserved. I wasn’t the right person to do that, no matter how much I wanted to be. Trying to explain that to her didn’t really feel like an option, because she’d have fought it. She would have fought for me and us and it would have hurt so much more than it already did. Being without her was killing me but it had to be that way. Jack was right. It was better to get out, save myself from as much pain as I possibly could. So once again, I’d chosen against talking, because I couldn’t. It was like my body was physically fighting any attempt I could make to tell her exactly how I was feeling. Instead of talking, explaining myself, I’d been blunt and hurtful and I’d lied, because I thought it would be easier for her. In a way, I wanted to give her a reason to hate me, to be angry and frustrated, anything to stop her from loving me. Anything to make it easier for her. We weren’t right for each other. Or at least, I wasn’t right for her. She had brought so much light into my life that I’d began to fear the dark, dread how things would be without her, and I was right to. I couldn’t stand the thought of her just waking up one day and realising she’d be better off without me. I felt too vulnerable. No one I’d ever cared for that much had stayed in my life. How could I expect her to be any different? I put the power back into my own hands thinking that would help, but the longer we were apart, it seemed my theory wasn’t panning out. I had no idea what might help me to heal, but seeing a therapist felt like a good place to start. “I’m sure there’ll be a lot of good therapists here.” Liam continued, covering my contemplative silence. “Just look around. Don’t think that… the highest price means the best therapy, because it doesn’t. You can sit across from some people and realise instantly that they see you as a job. Find someone who cares. Find someone who honestly wants to help, not someone who sees you as work. Yeah?” “Thanks.” “Don’t mention it. See you tonight.” “Yeah.” With a smile, he finally left my apartment, leaving me on my own with my thoughts once again. I practically downed the rest of my coffee before heading back through my bedroom and into the bathroom, filling up the bath the rest of the way before undressing, testing the waters, messing with my phone to play music through the speakers I had installed around the flat, and then finally climbing in. I became accustom to the heat quickly, steam rising around me as I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath in before submerging myself completely, imagining myself in the lake just outside of Rosebury. The sound of The Only Living Boy in New York playing became distant, unclear, somewhere between soothing and utterly unbearable. I listened to it on repeat for the next hour.

“You’re Harry Styles, right?” A little dazed, I looked up, gaging the boy ahead of me. I knew it would only be so long before my solitude was spoilt, but I suppose it was to be expected at such an event. The party had been even more agonising than I’d predicted. James, the boy who was hosting, was new to the area and relatively new to the scene that came with his career, and not only was he milking it, but he was putting on a show, building a character before my eyes. I’d met him briefly when I first arrived, but hoped to speak to him a little more before the nights end, advise him to stay true to himself, not to get lost in all the bullshit and be who what he thought others believed he should be. If he really wanted to talk to me about work, that would be the only honest advice I could give. I’d been there a few hours, only really sticking around to be polite and possibly hoping for a bit of inspiration, but that would have been difficult given I hadn’t even bothered to talk to anyone. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that someone had approached me. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s me.” I sat upwards on the sofa, changing my poise to speak to him properly. “Shit, I’m a huge fan. So good to meet you.” He offered his hand, and I took it. “My name’s Zayn.” “Nice to meet you.” I managed to smile, sort of comforted by his familiar accent, his demeaner. “You an artist?” “Graphic design.” He told me, sitting down beside me on the sofa. “I work on a lot of book covers, posters, advertisement, that sorta thing.” “Nice. You live here?” “I do. And what about you? I’d heard you lived here, but then according to the grapevine, you haven’t been around for a while.” “No, I uh… I moved back to the UK for a while.” “So that’s why your gallery hasn’t been open? I’ve been dying to see your stuff in person.” “M'gunna open again soon. M’just trying to… gather my bearings a bit. Get used to all… this again.” I huffed, gesturing vaguely to the room. He chuckled in a way that suggested he knew exactly what I meant and agreed entirely. “You don’t sound overly impressed.” “Am I that obvious?” I turned my head to him, smiled. “I get it. I feel the same way. I’ve known James for years, and the first thing he spoke about with me tonight was how much his latest piece went for. His new apartment. How fake he thinks everyone else is.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s mad how quickly people change.” I sat forward, still with my eyes on him, a huge smile on my face. I liked him instantly. “What was your name again?” “Zayn.” He answered. “Genuinely, it’s good to meet you. It’s good to talk with someone who… I dunno. I feel like we’re on the same page. I don’t get that often. Not here, anyway.” Just as we were about to really get talking, a rather large group of people approached us, some of them heading towards him, others coming up to me, tearing us away from our talk. There was a mix of people, some that I’d met a few times before, others completely new faces. Zayn got to his feet to greet them properly, whereas I basically retracted back into the chair, overwhelmed by their company, anxious and claustrophobic. They all sort of spoke around me, through me, at me. There wasn’t even really a conversation to join in with, it was all just noise. One of the many things I’d loved about being in Rosebury was the sense of community and family there. When people asked of your wellbeing, they actually cared to know the answer. They were kind, considerate, down to earth, genuine. I understood why my mother had always been so fond of it there, so drawn to that place. I cleared my throat, looking up to the people around me and spotting a girl who was staring right at me, my mind taking the few seconds to place her. And then she smirked, and I knew. She pushed through the crowd, drawing herself closer to me even though I’d dropped eye contact as quickly as I could, desperate not to talk to her. “Hi, Harry.” She leered as she got to me. “Y’alright?” I grumbled. “It’s been a long time. Too long.” She was someone I used to sleep with before I moved to Rosebury in August the year before, our companionship so casual and empty that I hadn’t even bothered to tell her I was moving away. I hadn’t seen her since, and I was glad of it because I knew exactly what she’d be like. She took her place beside me, immediately putting her fingers in my hair, her touch unwelcomed and cold. I really didn’t want to see her. She was so abrasively forward, unashamedly attempting to rekindle a flame that had barely existed between us in the first place. I knew I’d see her eventually, but I’d been absolutely dreading it. I didn’t look directly at her, my jaw tight as I cringed over her touch. “Please tell me it’s true you’ve moved back here.” She leaned close to me, whispering in my ear. “Unfortunately, that’s true.” I seethed, tilting my head the other way, but it didn’t stop her. “I don’t think it’s unfortunate. I think we should pick up where we left off.” My stomach was literally churning with every word, every sultry touch she inflicted upon my body. All I could think of was Alfie. All I could think about was how different it might feel if she was the one running her fingers through my hair, whispering in my ear, how it would feel to have her body that close to mine. I craved to once again experience the feelings I used to get when I was with her, how it felt to hold her, be held by her. But I knew that even if I was with her then, it wouldn’t be the same, not after everything. The day before I’d left, when she came to my place, touching her and being around her just seemed to fucking hurt more than anything else, like I was grasping hold of a memory, or a concept of something and someone I wanted so badly but didn’t deserve. Every overwhelming sensation that used to burst through my body when we touched was gone. Those butterflies she used to create, those beautiful butterflies had stopped fluttering, as though someone reached right into my gut and ripped them out one by one. I would have still taken the agony of Alfie’s touch any day over the way I felt then. “I don’t think so.” I answered bleakly. “C’mon, Harry, I’ve missed you.” She pouted. “We were good together.” “We weren’t together.” “You know what I mean.” She shrugged. “Do you need me to elaborate? Remind you of some specifics…” She trailed her hand to my chest, reaching through the gap at the top of shirt to feel at my skin. I closed my eyes, my nostrils flaring as I tried to keep myself together. “No. I don’t-” “I know you hate nights alone. Let me keep you company.” I turned my head to look at her, be sure that she could see the unyielding look in my eyes, that she would have no doubt at all that I was being entirely truthful about my intentions, how adamant I was that I’d rather be on my own than ever have her in my bed again. But she didn’t even give the chance to speak before she rapidly leaned into me, put her lips on mine. My eyes gripped shut as though I was fighting physical pain, but for a second, I kissed her back. It was a mere moment, a blip of time and thoughtlessness, but I kissed her back. Maybe to test the waters. Maybe because of my hopeless need to feel something, anything. But it was only for a second. Then I pulled away, taming myself as much as possible before I spoke, making sure that I didn’t yell even though that was exactly what I wanted to do. “Don’t ever fucking touch me again.” I wheezed. Whatever that kiss had made me feel, it wasn’t something to be desired. I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t in right frame of mind to be with anyone, even if it was without feeling or meaning. My kiss still belonged to someone else.

June 15th It was 4 AM when my phone rang. That was the first thing I did; check the time. With my eyes barely open and my head blaring, I looked to see the hour before I looked to see who was calling me, worried that I may have overslept and wasted most of my day. But it was early, too early. I didn’t even look at my phone, I just picked it up, not fully conscious as I attempted to answer it, hoping it would be a brief exchange with whoever was trying to get in touch with me at such a ridiculous hour. “Hello?” I just about spoke. “Shit. I didn’t think about the time difference, shit. Sorry.” I recognised Louis’ voice, my eyes opening. “Louis?” I began to sit myself up. “Yeah, sorry, I should’ve waited. I didn’t even think. I just…” “What? What is it?” I rubbed my eyes. “Is everything alright?” “I… I think you need to come home, mate.” My exhale was a heavy one. I think I’d sort of been expecting one of them to call in an attempt to coax me back there. They hadn’t been happy when I’d told them I was leaving. They’d wanted me to stay, for me to be happy, and I’d left them all without giving them more of a chance to talk things through with me. I purposefully avoided them after I’d broken the news, and I knew they’d have much more to say. They really did care about me. That’s why I thought he’d called. “I can’t, Louis. I-” “No, you need to. I know how much you fucking care about her, and she won’t call you herself, so-” “Wait, what? Is it Alfie?” I whipped my head up, suddenly wide awake. “Are you talking about Alfie? Is she alright?” He took a few seconds, his heart so heavy I could literally hear its burden over the phone. And then he told me. “Alfie’s mum died.”

#lets fucking GOOOOOOOOOO #HBS40 #Harry's POV again #eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek #I love this artwork

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