I saw Mommy kissing Samba-Claus (KISS BINGO EDITION) 💋🌿

[beleos]

QIASU (HIGHSTORM)

On December 15th, the marker of the latter half of Takiltu, Kenos comes together to celebrate unity and togetherness, to come together with friends and family, to be kind to others and share in one’s wealth - whether that comes in the form of knowledge, monetary gains, or the exchange of gifts and one’s time. This celebration is an amalgamation of many worlds’ winter festivals, and as such, is known in the two cities as the Year’s End Festival, or Qiasu as Highstorm calls it.

This part of Takiltu is when Highstorm truly starts to hit winter. Snow is a frequent occurrence, but it’s one that the city welcomes, since with the snow comes a few of the most beloved traditions of the city. By far the most popular is heading to Greenwood Yards. The gardens themselves may be either dormant or showing their simpler winter gardens, but you may have noticed an area by the bathhouses left in surprising amount of disrepair… This is because during the winter months, this area fills up with a natural outdoor hot spring! Take a swim under the moonlight, and even explore some of those ruined old manors, now with their first floors warmly flooded. It’s a tradition to bring in your favorite drinks and spend an evening sipping it in a parlor with friends, and to make new ones by sharing your drinks. Of course, do watch out for the ghosts. They’re mischievous more than malicious, but this is their favorite time of the year too!

You can also head to the Great Tree, which is decorated for the season with glittering glass orbs and is the current roost for the pale Moonbugs of Highstorm. Write a wish on a slip of paper and hold out your hands, and one of the Moonbugs will come sit within them. Whisper the wish to the Moonbug and it’ll take the paper and fly away to find someone to fulfill it. Of course, this also means that a Moonbug is likely to come find you! Besides it being good karma to fulfill the wish, you’ll be given a brief vision of the person whose wish you fulfilled and be blessed by the tree for the duration of the month depending upon your Aspect:

• Advocate: People are more likely to buy you meals/rounds and every recipe you make turns out perfectly.
• Exalt: Animals seem to think more kindly of you, and you'll find them much easier to befriend.
• Harbinger: You're given a more silver tongue as your arguments seem to be better at persuading people.
• Iconoclast: You won't be effected by cold weather in any way.
• Savant: You heal much more rapidly from any injury and are generally the very picture of health.
• Stargazer: Your indulgences (whatever they may be) are both easier to find and are of higher quality.

And of course, there’s one more well-known practice in Highstorm, though it’s more of a tradition of Kowloon’s… The Gävle family is a well-known family who has lived in Highstorm for a long time, and they brought a tradition of building a festive Yule goat made straw in the square outside of their businesses. However, it also happens to be outside of Yura Szczepanski’s home. He’ll never do it himself, of course, but if you manage to burn it down? He’ll reward you, obviously. It doesn’t make it any more legal, so those that try generally spend some time in a Highstorm jail, but it’s an enshrined enough practice at this point that not only has it burned down more often than it’s survived, but there’s even a betting pool in Kowloon for whether it survives or not.

Of course, if these traditions aren’t quite your vibe, you’ll also find the city just generally set up for a metropolitan winter. The Antiques & Baubles Market is rearranged to make room for a large ice-skating rink, Tasseography (the coffeeshop by the Tomes) has a seasonal special for a hot chocolate that will fortify you from the cold for a few hours (and make you fire resistant? Weird,), and the city also hosts a full-size gingerbread house that you can indeed take a bite from, to name a few things. Generally speaking, if it’s something you could do in a snowy city at home, you’ll probably find an equivalent somewhere in the city of moonlight.

Be warned, however, if you are visiting from out of town. Highstorm's reception seems just a touch bit chiller than the weather!

YEAR'S END FESTIVAL (SPRINGSTAR)

Springstar will never turn down a chance to celebrate, but eternally Highstorm’s opposite, this is the warmest time of year. With the sun always shining, some days can get near sweltering, but that just means you have a different set of traditions to have fun with it!

The ivy-like vines that decorated the city in the beginning of the month (November) are now in full bloom, and you’re now likely to learn why the Meri consider them sacred. Wherever the flowers bloom, they encourage feelings of warmth and slightly higher inclination for physical contact within those that encounter their magical pollen*. Holding hands with someone by the flowers will give you feelings of liveliness and happiness, and for a few hours, the positive traits of the person you’re holding hands with become more prominent in you and vice versa. These effects do linger a bit longer, since for a month, you’ll also find that being around this person also gives you both a little boost in energy. It’s very sweet! This also comes with a bit of a further game, if you’re at all a frequenter of Psychagogía...

Madame Dee’s hosts a very popular competition simply called Kiss Bingo. Approach the booth set-up outside the brothel and touch your Shard to a special card, and names will appear upon it. From there, the rules are simple. Just give that person a kiss! It can be on their hand, their lips, their [redacted], all of it counts, and once you do, a little kiss mark will mark their name out. Get a bingo, and you can pick from a variety of prizes such as a ticket for a week’s worth of visits at a local buffet, a shopping spree at a nearby store, or a box seat for a day at the Coliseum. Of course, if you’re really an overachiever, fill out the whole card to get multiple prizes. Madame Dee might just give you a job!

With the promise of home that the Meri deeply believe in, they have their own gifting tradition. The Shard-Bearers know best that it’s possible to receive gifts from the Timestream, and for Year’s End, it’s tradition for the Tribune to pull out all the stops. For a week of the Festival, the Tribune works just outside of Heliopolis, and with the help of priests from the Church of Helios, reaches into the Timestream to produce a gift for anyone that comes to ask. This year, however, he's asked Quetzalcoatl and Samba's elves to deliver gifts, but you might not get anything you asked for (or maybe you did!) but they're all gifts the timestream spit out!

On rainy days (or simply the unbearably hot ones), you can also go to Starlight Park, which offers a reprieve from the weather. Inside the dome, you’ll find a idyllic, snowy valley where you can partake in all the natural joys of winter. There’s (highly) competitive snowball fights, sledding, and skiing to partake in, though you might be cautioned away from one slope. Head down that course and about halfway down, you’ll be chased by… a yeti? Luckily it doesn’t seem to be able to harm you, but it’s still shockingly fast and will catch you no matter how quickly you ski. You can also spend a bit of money to rent a yurt along the river for a relaxing and exceptionally cozy glamping experience. Some Yurts are even adorned with the sacred vines. You know, for no reason.

You’ll also find the Meri heading away from the city of Springstar a bit to head down to some of the beaches that surround Springstar. Being an island within an Island (capital ‘I’ meaning the Kenos kind of island), Takiltu is the traditional start of Springstar’s summer season and all the fun that comes with that. The beaches are bustling, but the cool and crystal-clear waters of the ocean surrounding the city make it worthwhile. Surfing, diving, and sailing are popular activities, but just make sure to stay within sight of the shore. It doesn’t take too long to hit the end of the Island and sailing outside the magical barrier that keeps Springstar floating in Kenos’s starscape generally isn’t survivable.

Just be mindful, if you're trying to escape Highstorm's chill for some summer fun, as attitudes are shifting toward bearers in general, and it might not be as easy as it once was.

NOTES

Weather summary for the second 30 days of Takiltu (NOV & DEC):

• Highstorm is out of fall and into winter. While there are some milder days, snow (and heavy snow at that!) is getting more common.
• Springstar is hot and humid, and it's not uncommon for brief thunderstorms to roll through in the afternoon.

Notable city changes:

• Both cities have experienced changing attitudes toward shard-bearers. You will need to be mindful if you want to travel to a city that doesn't house your faction, as things might not be as easy when it comes to getting around.
• Springstar has had an increase in attacks toward it's citizens, and they are often fatal and destructive. Rumors travel among Springstar's seedier types that these are escaping from Ryad, and they aren't being reigned in. That always comes with a flicker of worry.

CODING

Comments

2.

[wolof]

[ In one of the manors, the one Link happened to visit, it was already occupied. Not by a woman, no, or at least, not by someone who looked like a woman. Floating atop the surface of the water was a black swan, looking quite comfortable, fluffed up and almost indulgent. If a bird could be said to have a personality, it would be one that was... quite pleased with themselves.

Though when Link entered, and slipped in, the bird almost looked away, as if polite, before it settled back into place, looking comfortable.

After a few moments, it made a sort of soft honking noise. Half to announce her presence, and half to chirp, making sound specifically so Link would notice that she (the black swan, not a human being named Akua Sahelian) was there.

The bird stared at him, with golden eyes. ]

[bakedapple]

[ Link spotted the swan when he first came in, but it was only a glance, with a passing thought to himself about how he's never seen a bird like this in Kenos before. Then again, he is still new to Highstorm... and who would blame any of the local wildlife for being drawn to the springs during the winter cold, just as people were?

It's after he is undressed, submerged in the water, and selecting the fireplace mantle as his spot for the day, that the swan calls out suddenly. Almost as if it were... calling out to him? Looking at it again, a closer look this time, he sees that it's staring at him. Huh, that's weird. And the longer he looks, the more he notices how unique the creature is. Golden eyes, coal black feathers... he hasn't seen a creature like this anywhere in Kenos before, not even Alenroux.

He gazes back at it, thinking, and then wades back to where his clothing and belongings are neatly piled along the bank. After rustling through his pack for a second, he pulls out a fist-sized item and peels its wax paper wrapping back to reveal a small roll of bread. Pinching the corner in his fingers, he tears a small piece off, looks out at the swan, and tosses the scrap towards it. ]

LINK??? YELLS!!!

[wolof]

[ Was he.

Was he feeding her bread?

Akua looked down at the small, soggy clump of bread as it drifted in the water. She leaned down, as if she might eat it.

Her head tipped, and then she looked back at Link, her expression pointedly unamused as she regarded him. She ruffled her feathers, puffing up like an annoyed bird, before she really did lift her head and tip it back, as if to say: "thanks, but no thanks". ]

c:

[bakedapple]

[ The curiosity with which Link watches the swan is pure and earnest. Like he's made an offer of peace and friendship to a wild animal countless times before, genuinely wishing to commune with it in some way, to share space together and show it the same respect he would any human. So when the swan lifts her head and looks away, as if rejecting the food, Link just blinks. ]

Don't like bread, huh?

[ Gaze lingering on the swan for another few moments, he eventually turns away to wrap the roll back up in its paper and tuck it into his pack. Then, he wades back to his seat on the submerged mantle. ]

I don't have any seeds or fruit. I'm sorry.

[ Unlike his body language, when Link talks to the swan, it does seem a lot more like he's talking to himself. With a sigh, he leans back and closes his eyes, ready to assume that he and the bird will sit in silence together, enjoying the water. ]

[wolof]

[ Akua's swan-like form kicked itself from the water, gliding to another part of the spring, when Link says he doesn't have any fruit, or seeds. Things that a normal swan would like perhaps, but it's almost endearing, how he is still trying to please even a swan.

Which says a lot, that she still does not understand some realities about him. The swan observed him, for just a moment, her dark head tipped, curiously, before she finally settled above a low stone, and the moment Link happened to turn away — ]

I can assure you, dearest, if I wished for bread, it would not be handed down.

[ She transformed, almost at the drop of a hat. One moment, a bird, and the next... a woman, up to her chin in the heated water. ]

[bakedapple]

[ Link pays little mind to the sound of the swan lifting off from the water and landing softly to some spot closer by — to his left, somewhere along the wall, from the sound of it.

It's the sound of a human voice that makes his eyes pop open again in shock. It's impossible not to notice the familiar woman sitting submerged in the water, looking right at him, with no swan to be seen. For a moment, he just stares, his mouth slightly open. ]

Miss... Miss Akua?

[ It's been a long time since they had any significant conversation in person, but he remembers her well. ]

The swan — that was you?

[wolof]

How else am I to indulge in a hot spring like this?

[ She asked, and her tone held a faint thread of amusement at his shock. She raised her hand out of the water, and turned it over. ]

Mm, well. I hadn't expected to see you here. Mm, rather...

[ She shrugged, the slosh of water around her shoulders loud in the stillness. ]

You move so freely amongst those here now, don't you? I wouldn't have expected to see you in here.

[ She Knows, her tone says, though it is... not fully with judgment. After all, she had harmonized to Zenith once.]

[bakedapple]

[ The tone in her voice makes quick work of Link's surprise. He closes his mouth, frowns, and leans back slightly, shoulders hunched. He isn't the most eloquent of people, but his body language speaks volumes, and right now it looks like preparing to endure an incoming attack. ]

This is my second time coming out into the city since I got here.

[ If she means to imply that he's quickly acclimated to being a Zenite, that's far from the truth. Sure, he can walk around in Highstorm freely, but that simply comes with aligning with the Zenith. Nothing more. ]

Isn't it you who shouldn't be here? If the wrong person sees you, there'd be trouble.

[wolof]

[ Akua's lips curled slightly downward, a touch of a frown, though she masked it well enough. She had not seen Link afterward, and the rumors in the papers had been enough to convince her that he had defected. Odd, really, for she had always seen him as the type to stalwartly support Meridian's cause.

Gods below help her, but she worried about him. Oh, not for affection — she was Praesi, after all — but because there were some people whose principles were static, and unwavering. She wondered what had happened, to shatter that? Zenith, to her, represented something between lost hope, and disgust for where they came from.

Which was it, for Link? The boy that she would call the consummate hero? ]

Well, I was a swan, dear. [ She said, with a laugh. ] No, I do not fret so much. I am acquainted with the high ladies within Highstorm, and though I am known to be with Meridian, I do not anticipate having difficulty leaving, should I be asked.

[ Perhaps whe was too confident, to sure. Akua felt comfortable in Highstorm, truly. Even now? Yes, this was no worse than the Dread Empress's court. ]

Besides, if I shied from this place, I would hate to return home, wilting under such subtle pressure. Why, nobody's even tried to poison me yet.

[bakedapple]

[ Her answer seems to satisfy him, as his gaze softens and averts to the side. Yeah... being able to turn into a swan is probably pretty useful for not being noticed. And, perhaps, his question had been more of an expression of his defensiveness than a genuine showing of concern. Link does not know Akua well, but he knows she doesn't need him to worry about her.

Sinking down another inch into the water, he sighs. ]

Well, give it some time.

[ ...was that a joke? A bitter joke, bordering on flippant, but yes, it was an attempt at levity, at least. He glances to her again. ]

I'll leave if you'd prefer to be alone. [ If she doesn't want him here. ]

[wolof]

[ Akua was not one for privacy, and despite her dark secrets and villainy, she knew well the way to soothe fears, and to keep others from fretting about her intentions. She knows precisely how to manipulate circumstances, and one of those is to be as comfortable, and as honest as possible. Tasia Sahelian had taught her well, after all, so she only looked at Link with a single, perfect raised eyebrow, before she sunk a half-inch lower into the water, and spread her arms along the outside edge. ]

I would not have revealed myself to you, were you unwelcome.

[ She pointed out. ] I didn't have to.

[ She remained quiet for a long moment. Link was worried about her, but truly? She was more worried about him. This was the equivalent of the White Knight defecting, something unthinkable. She couldn't imagine it, and yet, he had.

Finally, she spoke: ]

What happened?

[bakedapple]

[ The question causes Link's lips to press into a thin, tense line. He keeps his gaze cast to the side, avoiding eye contact, although it is not apparent why. Perhaps it is shame, but the look on his face is subtly defiant and defensive. Perhaps he just doesn't want to answer, but if that were the case, he could stand up and leave. Perhaps, he is frustrated — with Akua, with the question, or with himself. Or maybe all of the above. ]

I guess you haven't been reading the newspapers.

[ With this, he sinks a little deeper into the water and heaves a weighty sigh. ]

Two days before the Oracle, I realized I couldn't feel the Meridian anymore. My powers had stopped working. I tried to reach out to it again, but it didn't work. I couldn't find it.

[ This is like chapter 1 of a trilogy when it comes to explaining "what happened," but let's start with that. ]

[wolof]

Even if I did not read them, it's a subject of some interest.

[ She pointed out, but it was perhaps more gentle than normal. There was none of a villainess's bite, but instead the soft contemplative tone of someone watching someone pull apart at the seams.

It was wrong.

She thought, perhaps, she should Appraise him, but she held back for the moment. Let him tell her what really happened first. Sometimes, the best lead was the words of the individual who was going through such a change, rather than delving straight in. ]

Why? Such a thing does not happen in nothingness, I fear.

[bakedapple]

When I think back on it, in hindsight...

[ Was it always going to happen? Was it an eventuality? Had his devotion and faith been blind all along, destined to evaporate once the blindfold was torn off?

He doesn't verbalize any of this, of course. He's learned by now that he cannot just voice his spontaneous thoughts when talking about this, because they are rattled, disorganized, feverish musings linked together by scraps and glimpses that require their own full hour of explanation to explain. If Link has recovered from what happened to him in any way, it's been his ability to talk to others about it in a coherent way.

In this pause, he's tapping into that experience. Babbling his stream of consciousness like a madman doesn't get him anywhere. ]

Bondrewd tricked me into turning into a Discord monster and gave my Shard to Aetós after. [ Hopefully you know about that already, Akua, because he definitely isn't going to relive that just to explain it you. ] Aetós exposed me to the Timestream, and I... I saw things. I saw the past of my world, and the past of my soul... I saw it all. I've been fighting the exact same fight for thousands of years. Every time, I think I've won, but I really haven't. My world can't ever be saved.

[wolof]

[ She is familiar with Bondrewd's plan, and in fact, her lips purse slightly, as she listened. After all, she'd done something similar to Dark, hadn't she? She'd spent a great deal of her time in Highstorm, slowly escalating her Discord until it was too high, and she'd seduced the man, only to pump him full of her own Discord on purpose.

So she's well aware of the plan.

Ah, this was always her fatal flaw, so interested in seeing what would happen that she often forgot of the human cost associated with it. It was something Catherine had been so concerned with, that she had always seen as... unnecessary, but... ]

That is a long time, to fight your battles over and over. [ She admitted. ]

It is easy to lose hope in something, when you see the cycle repeated over, and over, and over. Does it not?

You want to break it. The cycle.

[bakedapple]

[ Is it? Is that it? Is that what he wants?

Link looks down into the steaming water, biting his lip softly. ]

It's impossible. It can't be broken. The... The Goddesses themselves set things up this way, didn't they? If they didn't want us to fight forever, wouldn't they have done something?

[ He can't want something when he knows it's something he can't have. When he knows it's impossible. And Hyrule, the world he loved so dearly and protected so fervently, would not be what it is without the history that it has. (In a certain way, Link is so close to "getting it.")

But there's a yearning in his heart all the same. ]

I don't want to abandon Hyrule. But I can't bring it back the way it is now, and I can't change it either. So what am I supposed to do?

[wolof]

[ This is a sentiment Akua knows well, and the soft chuff of water creates ripples across the water. She does not blame him, for the first time that this realization struck, it has destroyed many a hero and villain. What was the point of fighting, if it was such an eternal cycle? Why suffer, why languish like this, over and over, and over again?

Why fight to succeed when being the smartest and most capable achieved nothing? When some hero with an overly-inflated sense of purpose could simply end a villain in the middle of speaking?

Oh, she knew this well. ]

The will of the gods is, perhaps, the most difficult thing to understand. Perhaps it is not your goddesses alone that direct it, but the forces of balance, as well. Your goddesses must have a dark mirror to reflect the darkness in your world, and there is often an... inability to fully affect them. To change the rules, even if they wanted to.

[ Another sigh. ]

It is often the will of those whom can see the True scope of it, who are not so constrained, to do it for them.

[ She turned her eyes to Link, then. ]

We did it, in my world. Or... I thought we had. Before it was destroyed, and we arrived here.

We had just done it. Broken the cycle, to have our potential new future taken away.

I understand what it is, to have only tenuous hope.

[bakedapple]

[ Link is listening, but it takes him a few extra sentences to parse what she's saying. She's right, if he understands her meaning correctly — the "dark mirror" in his world battled against the Goddess Hylia millennia ago. A straight line can be drawn from Demise to not only Ganondorf, but every other malicious being that has threatened Hyrule since he cursed it. But Link had never thought of these things as a "force of balance." A balance against what? Hylians are not perfect, but most of them have only ever wanted peace. What is the purpose of constantly pulling society back into warfare and decline?

And even if that's the explanation... who cares? Link is someone with metaphorical boots on the ground. A divine desire for "balance" means nothing to him. What has "balance" ever done for Hylians or their enemies?

These thoughts renew a sense of hopelessness within him. He sinks a little lower into the water, looking quite dejected, until he senses Akua's eyes on him and he returns the look. ]

That's why you want to bring it back, then.

[ It makes sense. Of course you'd side with the Meridian if you'd just found a solution to your world's problems, only for it to be taken away from you. But Link is in the opposite position. Coming to Kenos only served to educate him on how deep the problems in his world go and how powerless he's been, across dozens of past lives, to actually do anything about it. ]

...How did you do it? Break the cycle, I mean.

[wolof]

We turned over the gameboard.

[ She said simply. ]

We introduced new elements, refused to play the game they made us play, and worked together to lay waste to a threat, and then built something greater.

[ It's difficult, she thinks, because most people like Link would never work with evil like Procer had been forced to. It helped that there had been a villain like the Dead King to unite against, to allow Cat to birth something new in its place. Perhaps, of course, the real answer was to find someone willing to straddle the space between good and evil. Someone who did not want to be evil, but found that the acts were the only way to thread that needle.

Or perhaps they needed a hero willing to reach out a hand.

Did it matter where it came from? ]

Good and evil, we united to stand against a greater Villain, and then we neutralized the greatest force for Good, that stacked the deck against change.

We had to, if we had any hope of finding a space between either Good or evil. The Intercessor for good needed balance. She was supposed to be for both, but she had never favored the other side, so we became more and more outlandish. Too powerful and too dangerous for them to handle. So good became more and more dangerous.

It was an arms race that was careening toward the destruction of all life on Calernia.

So we changed the game.

[bakedapple]

[ Link manages to follow Akua's story well enough, although he gets a bit lost in her more vaulted manner of speech. He speaks plainly, as one would might expect from someone who is essentially a medieval peasant, whose formal schooling ended in his early teens. At least intercessor is the only big word that was lost to him this time around.

They ended the cycle by refusing to participate in it any longer. That seems to be the gist of it. But could something like that ever work in Hyrule? How does one refuse to participate in... reincarnation? In the future, when a new war against monsters inevitably begins, how could anyone choose not to engage if said monsters commit the same atrocities as the ones who plague Hyrule in Link's time? ]

I see. [ His eyes flick upward to glance at her again. ] ...I'm glad your people managed to find a way.

[ But the look on his face and tone to his voice says that he isn't convinced anything like that would ever work in Hyrule. At least, not within his current understanding. ]

[wolof]

[ She can see it, in his face. That he doesn't believe. ]

We did not find it, dear heart.

We made it.

[ Her tone is confident, but direct, her lips peeled back in something that was almost sharp, villainous, and feral. Like a beast that had just barely been constrained. A creature that was too-long held back. Akua was a villain, after all. ]

We refused to take it anymore, refused to lived forced under that reign, and more importantly: we were motivated to find away. I pulled the attention of gods above and below to force their attentions. The Warden pulled both Heroes and Villains under her shared banner, and wanted to make them work together. She compromised more than the Heroes would, and forced where she knew she needed.

It is about... motivation, Link. Wanting is not enough, one must... make it what you want. If you are dissatisfied with your world, does that mean it should no longer exist? That it should remain in the ether, lost to all?

If that is the case, then you made the right decision, to join Zenith. [ She leaned back. ] I do not fault you, of course.

[bakedapple]

[ Ripples wobble out from around Link's body as that vicious snarl causes him to recoil in muted surprise. He knows that look — he's seen it before, on the face of a cruel man, fueled by a millennia-old curse, to tear down and set aflame everything Link had ever loved and fought for. His expression hardens. He doesn't dare look away from Akua as she speaks, not does he relax once she leans back to signal the end of her tale.

He doesn't know what to make of that look. It's almost completely overridden his interest in what they had been talking about before. But after a pause, he swallows, and asks carefully, ]

If motivation was all that mattered, I'd have found a solution already. Before I was even born... in a previous life.

Like I told Set... I'm not like you. I'm not a god, or a wizard... I can't just "make" things different.

[ The answer is as much as he can muster in this moment, as he's finding himself uneasy being in Akua's presence now. ]

[wolof]

Do you think that is what it takes?

[ Akua asked, and she actually felt sad for the boy. Coming into Kenos like he had, it likely had been eye opening to the amount of power, and perhaps there had not been enough like him in his world to begin with. At least in Calernia, though there was nobody like the Warden, she had the benefit of people like the Black Knight to guide her to what was possible. Though they had clashed as much as he had guided her. ]

Magic? Or godhood?

[ Her head shook. ]

I am not the one who led the charge in my world. I was, in fact, a barrier for some time. A rival, to the person who made it happen. It was only... [ She lifted her hand out of the water, and watched the drips cascade back into the water, plop plop plop before she took it up again. ] Only after I was killed, and forced to reckon with my deeds, did I support them.

The person that did it was a Squire, and nameless for most of it. She was so small in comparison to the powers that be, but she refused to ever pull herself fully from the mud, like the soldiers she so often led.

[ She shook her head. ]

I do not mean to convince you, Link. I just hope that you understand that every world has its challenges, but defeating the cycle is something that can be done. I just wish I had been able to see the end of it, how it turned out. Whatever destroyed our worlds prevented me from doing so, but... I would hope that others could change their cycles to.

[ A beat. ]

And this one.

[bakedapple]

[ She says she doesn't mean to convince him, but what else should Link make of this conversation? Akua is the one who wanted to know what happened during the Oracle and why Link came out of it on the side of the Zenith. And the answer that Link gave only prompted her to tell him that his own evaluation of his world is wrong. It's the same thing over and over with the Meris — some dodged around the topic with kinder words, like Yuri; some were more direct and firm, like Akua; and some spit judgment at him, like Set. But with everyone, it comes down to the same thing: that he's wrong about Hyrule being a lost cause.

And every time, none of them can actually tell him why. None of them can tell him how to change things in his world. Like Link told her, the problem isn't a lack of motivation or desire on his part. The problem is that Link is the person who will have to implement some hypothetical solution once he gets home. So, yes, actually, it does matter that he isn't a god. It does matter that he isn't some all-powerful being who can completely rewrite the rules of karma and destiny if he returned to his world. It isn't enough for people who, frankly, barely know what they're talking about, to reassure him that there's a solution out there somewhere. Conversations like these are akin to looking at a man dying of thirst in the desert and telling him that all he needs is to find some water. Yes, thank you, of course that's what he needs — but unless someone tells him where the water is, he's going to keep dying anyway.

Perhaps that is unfair. Nobody here can know Link's world as well as he does. Nobody is going to hand him the solution on a silver platter like that. But he's fresh out of ideas, and his hope has run dry, and empty platitudes about how he just needs to want it more don't do anything for him.

Akua might not be giving him that sinister smile anymore, but Link won't be forgetting it any time soon. As she speaks, he silently withdraws away from her, both physically and mentally. His eyes stare down into the water, empty and unfocused, to match the placid neutral expression that descended onto his face. ]

...It's not my goal to keep you from returning to your world, Akua. Or any other Meri. If there's a way for you to make it home, while not having to bring mine back into constant suffering... that's what I would prefer.

[ But that is something they've been assured is not possible. ]

If the Meridian wins, and I end up having to go back, I will. But it won't be a victory to me, and I don't know what I'm going to do.

[ The Master Sword is gone, after all. Link killed her. ]

[wolof]

[ Akua Sahelian, unfortunately, is a prideful woman at her core. Similar to with Ruby, she believes that one should actualize themselves, and a lack thereof is the fault of the person who cannot make it happen, rather than something of the world. It is unfair, of course, she had been forced to accept this, kicking and screaming, lying and scheming to pretend she believed until the moment she had realized that she did believe. It was ironic, perhaps, that in this, she simply does not see it.

Links should not be surprised, when she says: ]

I do not believe my world can be returned, dear. [ She says, simply. ] My world must have died, in the moment after I died. We went far, we were going to build something grand, but an Angel was poised to lay waste to my world, and I lay dying on the ground.

[ Really, she had already faded, her body as gone as the Wandering Bard's, but that wasn't important. ]

As I said, I do not blame you for choosing Zenith, if your hope is gone. [ A Sigh. ] I just... wanted you to know hope is not only the promise of Meridian. It can be the promise of your allies, as well.

Just remember that, should you... find that the sacrifice of what remains is too great.