World Tree MUSH

  Far below the lofty heights of Peak Province, spring has already touched Hyrule Field far below. The green of tender new growth is visible even from such a great distance, and it changes the landscape dramatically. Those vast plains are softened by the change, and even with the Twilight casting its pall over the citadel, somehow the central province seems somehow less threatening.

  Then again, Peak Province is some weeks' travel away from the castle. Nothing seems so threatening at such distances.

  One can see the whole of Hyrule spread below like a patchwork quilt. Higher up, crouching amidst the roof of the world, Snowpeak Garrison lords over its heights like a predatory beast crouched amid the summits. Wind skirls about its heights, and the sun has already sunk below the horizon, casting cold shadows over its walls. Yet the inside is warm and dry after its renovations.

  Inside, its displaced queen has begin the nightly task of lighting torches in its corridors and the more-used chambers. She paces the halls with a slender torch, sedate; dressed in a simple dress and looking much more a commoner than royalty. Yet Zelda makes even that seem to fit.

  She's rounding the corridor to the library, just now, though the chamber with its vast shelves and books lies dark for the moment.

    Terra can often be found gazing at such things. Indeed, when the sun was in full shine, the half-esper might well have been poised on some overlook or another. Gazing out toward the unknown wider world. Come dusk, though, even a creature with a fiery soul like hers is most likely to be found sheltering in the relative warmth.

    Zelda's rounds aren't unknown, though perhaps some haven't correctly discerned the actual pattern of the exiled monarch's patrol. Terra certainly hasn't. So, she's huddled in the library. One of the warmest, least humid rooms in the entire outpost. Huddling around a book, likely chosen at random while she strains her eyes to regard the language they're inscribed in.

    Stooped over a book. In the gloomy depths of the library. Is it okay to light torches? Or candles? She's unwilling to waste and though she practically bleeds magic the thought of exploiting that for light doesn't even occur.

    Zelda's quiet approach is unheeded. Or perhaps simply greeted with the rustle of pages as the green haired young woman settles for squinting her eyes at some illustration or another.

  It would be easy to miss the young monarch padding down the hall. She doesn't necessarily try to be quiet, but it's more accurate to say that it's just her way to be quiet and unobtrusive. A rarity, among royalty; but certain habits were drilled into her after the coup.

  The Hylian pauses, once she observes that the library isn't empty, holding her torch higher and waiting for her eyes to adjust.

  "Miss Branford, is that you?" Zelda's voice is also quiet and unobtrusive, but that comes less of acquired habits, and more of her personality.

  She is not the bombastic force of personality that marked her father, or even her grandmother; she is quiet, and a fair sight more cunning in her approach to life. To quietly consider all of a situation's angles is more her way.

  Taking a few more steps into the chamber, Zelda lifts the torch, lighting the sconces along the wall that are shielded from the flammable materials gathered on the shelves. Waiting to ensure they light, she moves clockwise about the room, before turning and seating the torch into an empty sconce.

  Arranging her skirts, she seats herself across from Terra, folding her hands in her lap. Even that action manages to look regal, despite her commoner's clothing, and she offers a faint smile to the half-Esper. "The materials on these shelves may be a bit dry to your tastes, I'm afraid. Certainly they have little of value to my immediate situation."

    There's a slight twitch in Terra's shoulders as a voice reaches out in greeting. Ah! So laser focused on what she was doing she momentarily forgot she shared this place with other people! She manages not to squeak out loud from that minor start, though she has to swallow before she manages a reply.

    "Yes. I was just looking."

    Really really hard. She doesn't have to struggle against the lack of light as much to see script, the filigree of the margins or stylized depiction of some people or another. She's already flipped past the ledgers she'll never hope to have any context, let alone use for.

    She'll leave off staring too hard at the books until Zelda's situated herself. It seems rude to ignore one's host in their own home. Dwelling? Luckily, her confused thoughts aren't even more confused stammering.

    Then Zelda's seated herself. There's a few beats of silent staring in reply to Zelda's gentle quip.

    "Aren't books supposed to be dry?"

  "No harm in that, and no shame in it, either. My tutors used to say that there is no more noble goal than the pursuit of knowledge." Fortunately, this is not the young monarch's home. It's no more than a borrowed roof until such a time as the castle can be liberated from the nightmarish monsters that occupy it. "By the way you pore over it, though... you can't read Hylian, can you?"

  Leaning over, Zelda glances at the open pages, summer-blue eyes skimming over the precise glyphs. A biography, some aristocrat that lived during the time of her... grandmother? No, her mother. No one of any real consequence, beyond being a successful merchant.

  Aren't books supposed to be dry?

  Zelda laughs, quietly; one hand reflexively lingers at her throat. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that literally. I meant that some of these things... well, they can be a bit boring. Of little relevant interest." She sweeps the arm outward, gesturing to indicate the floor-to-ceiling shelves. "Most of these materials are quite old. My mother's time, or even my grandmother's time; books and scrolls that were probably taken from Hyrule Castle."

    Terra might think she has a lot of catching up to do, given her particular state. She's certainly not opposed to trying but with many of the books present here that's proving to be more than a chore. In acknowledgement she makes the tiniest expression that may be frustration. "I can't." She feels no shame in that, at least, though she keeps the book open, flipping another page forward, then back. Fidgety hands.

    Though she stills ever so slightly and turns the book to better let Zelda see.

    "Huh?"

    Zelda's laughter in response to her question gets a curious headtilt from the half-esper. Legitimately surprised by that, she's a bit slow to bite when Zelda explains her meaning. "Oh. They just kept these to be polite?"

    Though, she does suddenly find quite the question swelling in the back of her mind. What might she leave to posterity someday? She squirms, uneased by her own thoughts and so closes the book. Lamely, she offers, "The pictures were interesting. Easier to see with the light." Beat. "Thank you."

    She almost manages to feel proud of the save at the end! Almost.

  "No." Zelda shakes her head, gently, reaching up to clear a stray lock of chestnut hair from her face. "They kept these books because they were either valuable, or they were sentimental to whoever built this place. I have very little information on that person, or for what specific purpose this place was built."

  She looks up to the shelving, considering the solidity of the building. "All I know is that this garrison was obviously meant to serve in an active capacity, before it was abandoned. There is an armoury, and there are provisions for a full complement of soldiers."

  "My grandmother had a hand in things. Of that I am certain. How, or why, though, I have had no success in determining." Zelda turns her eyes back to Terra, clear and calm. "I believe it may be important, although there are more pressing matters I must devote my attention to."

  Like kicking that Twili monster off her throne.

  She raises her head, inhaling deeply and letting the breath go through her nose. When she opens her eyes, she regards Terra thoughtfully. The pictures were interesting. Well, there are certainly illustrations in it, and they're certainly nice. Portraits, and maps, and the occasional sketch drawing of important locales, including the great market in Castle Town. "You're welcome."

  "If you want to educate yourself on Hyrule's histories, I can select from these shelves more appropriate materials. Or, I can tell you myself, which may make much more sense to you. I expect Hylian is not like the written languages you are familiar with." She folds her hands over her lap, tilting her head slightly at Terra. "What do you say...?"

    Oh, of course. Terra looks up and around, ponytail bobbing just a bit. Not knowing what's really-really in the books leaves her with no real way to assess their value beyond Zelda's judgement. Zelda not knowing something apparently important like this, though, does make her look across at the other woman.

    "Mmm." Military structures. She has some working knowledge of such things. Almost entirely ways to destroy or assault them. That unwanted thought makes her shoulders droop just a bit. She decides on offering one observation that isn't entirely negative, though. "This place does have a nice view." Maybe that has something to do with it. Of course, that fact isn't lost on the current owner.

    "Your grandmother..." Though, if discussing the fortress itself isn't truly important and there's an open offer for a story. Or a late night of them, even...

    The half-esper settles into her seat. Not quite slouching but at least relaxing just a bit, eyes shining and eager. "I'd like that." Er. "I'd like it if you told me." A little bit of a smile there, maybe.

    If she can't have her own history, she'll have a history vicariously.

  As the living embodiment of wisdom, it would seem strange that such an important detail would elude the young queen. On the other hand, all she's said of her grandmother suggests a clever and cunning woman who had made a number of contingencies for a future only she could see.

  Zelda can only begin to unravel the mysteries. Too, there are matters more wide-reaching and strange than the mystery of Snowpeak Garrison's construction, but those will take a great deal more time to unravel. Right now, the most critical matter is to remove the usurper sitting the throne, and begin to set Hyrule's wrongs aright.

  The princess demurely folds her hands in her lap; her posture and her mannerisms are prim and proper, although only a fool would mistake her as meek or weak of will. There is no small cunning in her own summer-blue eyes. Wisdom is not only intellectual knowledge. It's the instinct of applying that knowledge, too.

  Zelda smiles, faintly, and the expression is genuinely fond.

  "My grandmother," she comments softly, "was a very intelligent woman, and she was my most trusted teacher and friend. I know too that she was also a woman who did not compromise, nor shirk what needed doing when her people were on the line. I find myself at a quandary, Miss Branford. I loved my grandmother. Yet I also must now face the possibility that she had a hand in terrible events engineered in Hyrule's history. Perhaps she saw a prophecy that she wished to avoid; some vision of the future that haunted her. I do not know."

  Zelda shakes her head, softly. "I know only that the answers I seek hinge on the mysteries left behind by my royal grandmother, yes?"

  "But that puzzle is to be solved another day."

  "I will tell you, then. Perhaps some context would be useful. I will start at the beginning," the Hylian says softly. "Hyrule's creation..."

    Mysteries being a core aspect of her life as far as she knows, Terra can't help but be curious about everything. This temporary home, the contents of the library, the people who left it behind. The people Zelda seeks to liberate. Save? ... Avenge?

    Dour thoughts don't suit her current mindset, so she shakes her head to dispel the grim notion. It's on to that grandmother she'd not quite stopped herself from mentioning. She can only wonder about her own. Does she even have one? Being uncertain how to feel about any of that is almost distracting enough to pull her focus away from Zelda's words.

    Almost. The mystery of ancestors is put aside for now to make way for Zelda's proper story. She shifts in her seat, tucking her legs together while her hands trace the patterns on the old memoir's binding.

    It will turn out that she is actually quite a good listener!

  "Long ago," Zelda recites softly, trance-like, eyes closed, "the three goddesses created this realm. Din shaped the red earth. Farore filled that earth with life in its many different forms. And Nayru created the immutable laws by which all life would live."

  She opens her eyes only a fraction, rising from her chair and taking up her torch again, carrying it to the fireplace. Kneeling, she lights the firewood in it, moving the decorative screen back into place, waiting patiently for the kindling to catch.

  "Their work complete, the Golden Goddesses departed the realm they had created. Left behind at the point of their departure was the Triforce -- the Power of Gold -- a sacred relic that would grant the wish of whomsoever touched it."

  Zelda swaps her torch for a fire poker, prodding and nudging the burning embers this way and that. She sighs in pleasure at the resulting warmth; four walls and a roof may provide some insulation, but those rooms without an active source of heat are still stone-cold. "Needless to say, a great many wars were fought in Hyrule's history over this powerful relic."

  "The most recent of these were between the Kingdom of Hyrule and a people we know only as the 'Dark Interlopers.' I do not know what their true name was. I suspect it has been lost to history. In any case, they sought the Power of Gold, though they were unworthy of it. The Light Spirits retaliated, and banished them to the Twilight Realm. There, with no path back to Hyrule, they gradually became the people we know now as the Twili. Of them is the usurper that sits my throne, Zant."

  Zelda settles on her haunches, setting the fire poker aside and staring into the depths of the fire. "It is only one epoch in a long and largely lost history. Only Her Grace knows the full account. Much has been destroyed, or lost; I must assume that everything contained in the royal archives has already been put to the torch, for I saw it burning when I fled."

  "But for the immediate future, that does not matter. I can try to save what I can, but later, once the castle has been liberated and the safety of my people in Castle Town guaranteed." She shakes her head. "In any case... we women of the royal family, we have ever been closely connected to Her Grace, as direct descendants. My grandmother, too, was close to her. She was a master of prophecy and vision; far more than I have ever been."

  "I can only assume that she saw things that I cannot." Zelda stares into the fire. "That her actions were prevaricated on these dreams and visions."

    Three Goddesses. Right away something itches at the back of Terra's mind. Something vague and unremembered, certainly, but there's an inkling of familiarity there. Tilting her head to better listen and then follow Zelda as she rises and moves over to start the fire.

    Oh, she probably should have lit that herself. Though she's gotten on rather well in spite of her relatively lightweight attire, she's a little embarassed at not being as sensitive as her companions to those chilly drafts or the chill of cold stone.

    The story is taken on with patience to spare, the half-esper's only outward distraction being the occasional tug of her hair. When the lesson concludes, or at least turns toward the here and now once again, she leans forward in her seat, face cast in the firelight. "Is that what they wanted when..." She's uncomfortable outright mentioning sacking a city. For various reasons.

    "Sorry. I just- If you can talk to one goddess, can you talk to the others? Maybe..." They can help? She doesn't quite say before she starts to write her own thought off as silly.

  The Hylian's clear blue eyes linger on the other woman, studying the girl with much more awareness and presence than a person of her years ought to show. Zelda studies Terra with that gentle intensity of hers, almost bordering on melancholy, before gently shaking her head.

  "The Twili are the descendants of the Dark Interlopers, and they were imprisoned in the Twilight Realm. Although it seems most of them made peace with this fate, not all have accepted it with open arms." Zelda murmurs quietly, focusing on the heart of the fire. Her gaze is shuttered; unreadable. "The usurper is one such of the latter. He could not accept that the Twilight Realm was cast into limnal darkness while we of Hyrule flourished in the light."

  Her eyes slide away from the fire; away from Terra. "He is not wrong, even if the expression of his resentment is wholly unacceptable." Sitting back on her heels, she looks back at the fire, frowning tiredly. Can she talk to the other goddesses? "I am a daughter of Hylia, and therefore not wholly mortal. You have seen that for yourself. Yet I am also an agent of the Author of Law, and Her liaison between Herself and my people."

  "Beseeching the other goddesses would be in poor taste. There are no answers that they may offer me," the Hylian offers quietly. "Wisdom is my purview, and so I must use Wisdom's tools: Dream, prophecy, and song; lore and knowledge."

  Zelda's eyes half-close, and she wraps her arms around her knees, resting her chin on her crossed arms. The gesture makes her seem much younger than she is, even as her words disassociate her from that youthfulness. "As to Her Grace... sometimes yes, sometimes no. I believe it cost Her Grace much more to communicate directly with me than with all of you."

    Terra does her best not to squirm under that regard. It's tough! Zelda can be intimidating to the timid! Or, at the very least, to people so thoroughly uncomfortable in their own skin as herself. At least she doesn't apologize. Again, anyway.

    If only she really understood how much this situation truly resembled her own, if only from a different perspective. It really does prod at her innermost thoughts in a way she finds rather unsettling, especially with eyes upon her.

    "I wasn't sure." She plucks at her own knee idly, dropping hands from her hair to do so. This whole idea of goddesses should be foreign to her but she feels like it isn't. Like she needs to know more but she doesn't know what to even ask.

    "That person. Why didn't they just..." Ask for help! Something! Right? She nibbles her lip, also harboring impressions of a person who wronged her deeply. "Is there anything we can do? Now?"

    There's something she perhaps means to say. Or ask. Almost like a petitioner at court hemming on the verge of asking for a boon or at least permission.

  Each subtle tell is studied in turn, and given the due consideration of a virtuoso evaluating all the parts, all the individual voices, of a symphony. Zelda does not press for an answer. There's no need to. It would only serve to fluster the half-Esper even further.

  "I don't doubt it, Miss Branford. I would be surprised if any of these other realities bore any... spiritual overlap, if you will. We cannot know until we ask." Of course Zelda doesn't mind. Wisdom is her purview, but that includes knowledge, and the pursuit of knowledge, too.

  "Because he is deranged," Zelda answers as Terra trails off, something cold and alert and steel-sharp in her tone. Her eyes are hard as she stares at the fire. "From what I have managed to piece together, he first usurped the throne of the Twilight Realm, before he turned his ambitions against Hyrule. There is no helping him. Every breath, every action is taken to further his spite against those who imprisoned his people... though it was not we who banished them to the Twilight Realm, but our ancestors."

  Is there anything they can do now?

  "Yes. There is something we can do. We can prepare for war, because that is what I will have on my hands once he discovers that I am alive." Zelda takes up the poker again, stabbing it into the coals beneath the logs with feeling. "And this will not resolve itself until one of us is dead. There is no reasoning with him. And I will not -- cannot -- back down while my people are in danger."

  Silence stretches for a moment. Zelda finally glances aside to Terra, arching a brow. "What is it, Miss Branford? Speak. Please," she adds, more gently. "I value your opinion."

    Terra might have a decent poker face at rest. She's so conflicted and not-quite upset but there's something that just keeps bothering her about Zelda's account of things. It's not that she doesn't believe the woman. No, she most certainly does and that is disturbing on its own. So, mildly flustered she is and will likely remain for a time!

    "Mm." The merest verbal acknowledgement toward a simple statement. The half-esper feels somewhat guilty asking so much. She's given little enough in return, she feels, that perhaps...

    One hopeful thought makes way for another, darker thought. Deranged?? A few faces flit through her mind, riding trauma both recent and nearly forgotten. Heedless of decorum or manners, she tucks her legs up against herself and hugs her knees as well, not minding the seat she's in. Preparing for war...

    Hemming and hawing on what her opinion actually is in the first place keeps the young woman silent for a stretch, for sure. Finally, she looks up. "I think... I need to try to learn about myself. I don't know anything. I'm in the way and-" Headshake. Eyes squeeze shut as she takes a deep breath. "I have to go back to where Rydia and the others found me. That creature, I think, spoke to me before." Before it vaporized the war machine she was riding.

  The Hylian doesn't bother to interrupt her guest. She files away the different reactions for future reference, though, studying those flickers of half-hidden emotion. Maybe she can uncover what they mean later. For now, she lets Terra react.

  "An admirable goal, and one folk in more stable situations than yours ought consider," Zelda concedes. She tilts her head slightly as the tangent abruptly turns toward self-loathing and finally an endpoint; a goal. "I will help you in whatever way I can. I will ask Rydia. I was not present, and do not know where that place is. She will remember."

  Sighing, she rises, stretching and working the kinks out of her neck and back. Straightening, she adjusts the lay of her skirts, smoothing them down and looking over to the fireplace. "Perhaps I will find answers, there, too. I will speak to Rydia at the next opportunity. For now... you should rest. The hour grows late," she adds, with some sympathy. "You must be tired. I myself will be retiring to my quarters, soon."