World Tree MUSH

  After the firestorm that had swept northwestern Hyrule Field, Zelda had settled payment with the mercenaries, ensured the villagers could look after themselves as they went someplace safe, and gathered up Rydia to drape over the front of her saddle, holding her in place.

  Then she'd sent Lynel back up the mountain. After riding all night she'd reached Snowpeak Garrison; by then, soot-stained and half-singed, she'd been good for nothing but to settle Lynel and make sure she'd done all she could for Rydia.

  And then she'd passed out in her quarters, still smelling of smoke.

  She's gone through the day mostly silent, but that's probably not much of a surprise. It was a nerve-wracking night.

    Nerve-wracking is certainly a light way to put what happened. Were it not for the fact that Rydia was already in a state of exhausted catatonia from exerting herself to summon Shiva, chances are high the girl would have been in a state of... Exhausted catatonia from being exposed to the inferno.
    It was a treacherous trip back up the mountain with an exhausted Summoner, but she at least survived the trip, and... Has not moved since. She has not left her quarters, in fact she has not even left her bed, she lays passed out and tossing, wracked by terrible nightmares of fire and flames.
    It might be a good idea to check in on her.

  Sunset has come and gone by the time the door to Rydia's room opens. Through it comes Zelda in a slightly different peasant dress; one that doesn't reek of smoke. Balanced on an outstretched arm is a tray with a pot of tea, two cups, and some manner of light food; scones, by the look of it. Boiled oats. Snowpeak's food is, at times, bland.

  "Rydia?" Delicate knuckles rap on the door. You awake yet, tiny sass engine? "I brought you something."

  She'll take the opportunity to step inside and nudge the door shut with her ankle, just for privacy's sake. It wouldn't do to have people flocking all over in Rydia's delicate state... and Zelda isn't sure her frayed nerves would support dealing with a lot of people right now, either.

    If Rydia responds to the call of her name there's no hint of it. The girl tosses again in her slumber, rolling and rumpling sweat stained sheets. Maybe it's the smell of food. Or maybe it's the instinctive feeling of someone entering her space, but in an instant she bolts upright.
    The way her hand hides under the pillow suggests she may be gripping the dagger there all too tightly before sunken, lusterless eyes finally focus on just who it is.
    "Oh." The child croaks. "It's just you, Zelda."
    She's paler than the sheets she just nearly threw off,, and it looks like an effort and a half for her to just sit up, but Rydia is awake now.

  The sudden bolt uprightness of the Summoner draws no real surprise from the princess, who bustles about the room as though nothing had changed. She's drawing the musty curtain back from the window and letting a bit of the sunset in, tidying up here and there, and clearing a place to set the tray. (Most of the place might have been abandoned, but someone had found some good serving silver moldering quietly in a storeroom.)

  "Good morning, princess." A bit of light sarcasm from the actual princess, there, pausing to glance over. There's a table and chairs in the room, and Zelda sets the tray down there, setting out two cups and pouring tea into each. "You look like hell," she adds, amicably. "I brought you food. And tea."

  Without breaking stride she seats herself at the table, pulls a small silver flask from a pocket, and daintily unscrews the cap. It smells like booze. The kind of stuff used to professionally strip paint. Without further ado she upends it into her own teacup, swilling it around vigourously.

  "It might be a good idea to stagger into the baths, today, too. I'll help you over there if you're too unsteady. I could use it, too." She still smells a little like lingering soot and char. "I think you were out, but I stayed long enough to send my people in safe directions. They should be all right, although I can't say the same for their village." She sighs through her nose. "I should have suspected, with such dry snows this winter." Her mouth twists, bitterly. "It troubles me how much the Author of Law has shuttered Her lamp, of late."

  Her attention turns back to Rydia, something more dubious in her expression. "I'm... sorry you had to see that. Last night. I should have sent you back up the mountain. I'd already known what I'd be riding down into." The smoke had been visible even from the trailhead at Snowpeak Garrison; spreading like smudged ink over the horizon. Even the flames had been visible, fanning out and devouring the dry grass.

  "I'm sorry."

    No sooner than the curtains are pulled aside to let the sunlight in, Rydia is hiding under her sheets with a hiss. It's bright. Far too bright, and the girl is suffering the king of all headaches. And so, she hides under her sheets and she refuses to come out.
    "Well, I look like how I feel." She counters the assessment of her appearance, one jade eye daring to peek out from under the covers. It's not the first time she's summoned an Eidolon, and just like the last times she called upon Shiva or Ramuh, it wiped her out entirely. It is the prospect of food and tea that makes her slowly sit up again, with the blanket over her head looking much like a tiny Tonberry or jawa.
    She watches the princess pour out something else into her tea as well.
    "I'll take a bath when I feel like moving." She says before pointing a small finger.
    "You give me some of that, right now."
    But then she pauses. And that blanket-shrouded head slwoly shakes.
    "I followed you. I knew what I was getting into." And again she pauses.
    "Now seriously, give me some of that.

  Unperturbed by the hissing and the hiding, Zelda crosses one leg over the other and swills her teacup a little slower, either waiting for it to mix correctly, or waiting for Rydia to decide she wants to be part of the humanoid-ish race.

  To Rydia's retort the princess only arches a brow. That much is obvious. She doesn't even grace the statement with a response, mostly because there's no need to. The Summoner is looking pretty rough on the outside, but it's the inside she knows to be raw and burnt. It's the wounds unseen that that cut to the quick.

  Zelda swills her cup around a little more, taking a sip of her doctored tea.

  Her expression immediately puckers and sours.

  ...Too much.

  "Well, I know that feeling." Whether it's meant in response to working up the energy to bathe or in response to Rydia demanding some of that additive, Zelda doesn't specify.

  Now seriously, give me some of that, Rydia demands, staring at her from beneath that ridiculous blanket hood.

  Zelda takes a more measured sip, expression serene, cradling the cup in delicate fingers. Her hair is loose; part of the back is slighly singed, and one hand looks like she'd touched something hot, the skin treated with ointment. She didn't get away from the night unscathed. Not very many did, excepting offworld visitors.

  "Not so easily as that." Zelda fixes a blue eye on Rydia, gaze bland. "Out of that bed, first, and perhaps a brush through your hair, and then w'ell talk. I can help you if you aren't quite up to it. There's no shame in asking; you exhausted a great deal of energy last night." Zelda's voice cracks. So did she, but most of it involved shouting orders to village folk over the din of the fire. And maybe inhaling a little smoke. Without skipping a beat she clears her throat and continues on: "I wouldn't ordinarily give this to a child, but we both know you're different."

    Rydia's initial response is the the most vicious of scowls.
    But she is spurred to sit up a little more, legs swinging off the bed. Her brow knots. "A brush?" She says incredulously. As though she had never taken one to that wild mass of green hair in her life. It's one thing to see the princess with her hair down. It's another thing entirely for Rydia to consider brushing her own hair.
    "Mn..."
    That blanket-hood isn't coming down. But she is shuffling closer towards those scones and oats when her stomach audibly snarls, causing her to start wolfing them down. She pauses only briefly.
    "I'll probably need the help." Getting to the baths she means. But aside from that she snorts.
    Different.
    Different certainly is a way to describe Rydia of Mist.

  The princess looks unperturbed in light of the vicious scowl sent her way, and goes so far as to take another delicate sip of tea. She cocks a blue eye as Rydia swings her legs down and then shuffles over to the table, still wearing that ridiculous blanket hood. Zelda sighs and flits a glance skyward, as though in soulful exasperation. You can lead a horse to water...

  As Rydia busies herself with wolfing down scones and oats, Zelda plucks the flask from her pocket and adds a capful to Rydia's tea, swirling the cup around and setting it both in front of Rydia and also safely out of the range of flying scones.

  "I don't have any other pressing business to tend to, today," the princess comments nonchalantly. That is to say, she's happy to help the Summoner, and if she did have something going on, Rydia ranks priority. "I promised Lynel a thorough grooming after last night... but he will survive."

  That is to say, the big demon-horse of hers in the stable. It's appropriately named, from what bits and pieces of lore she's been able to dig up in books to show Rydia.

  "I recommend not venturing outside, today, either." Zelda gestures with her chin towards the open curtains, but she'd left the glass shut. The light has a surreal quality to it, almost yellowish. "A day later, the smoke has reached us. It should clear in a day or two, but until it does, better not to be breathing it in."

  She falls quiet, but the Hylian seems like she has more to say. Her eyes linger on the leaded glass of the window, but they aren't focused. She's thinking something over.

    "Like I'm really going to go outside after yesterday." Rydia points out pettishly. The sun from the window alone was enough to make the girl withdraw into her sheets like a hermit crab into its shell, and after a moment of scarfing down scones she trudges toward the window, one hand covering her eyes from the sun...
    And promptly closes the blinds.
    "Careful with that horse." She says on the topic of Lynel, though, reaching for her now doctored tea. One sip and the face she makes says it all.
    Rydia of Mist was not prepared.
    But she takes her time with it, slow, small sips. "He might trample you to death for going back on your promise." She says before pausing.
    "A gil for your thoughts, princess."

  "It was worth a warning," Zelda says with a shrug. "Particularly if you inhaled as much smoke as I did. No need to aggravate one's throat any further... the winds should sweep it along in a day or so."

  "I am as careful with Lynel as one is cautious in his namesake's presence." The princess sips at her tea, not so much as hesitating over the additives. "But I would not break a promise meant for him. He has been abused enough in his lifetime."

  Another sip of tea, and she places the cup down on the saucer, folding her hands on the table in front of her. She doesn't react much as Rydia trudges for the window, other than to blink rapidly when the room is suddenly plunged into darkness. It takes her a few seconds of staring blankly, wide-eyed, for her eyes to adjust. When she does, it's to note that lovely expression on the Summoner's face.

  "You asked," she points out, serenely.

  Gil for her thoughts, and Zelda looks up, as though startled out of those thoughts.

  "It is time to move. I have been cowering within the walls of Snowpeak Garrison for far too long. I must descend the mountain and see for myself what is become of my kingdom... and begin to right Hyrule's wrongs." She drops her gaze to the teacup, tilting it and rolling it along its saucer with delicate fingers. "We will travel for Zora's Domain soon... at break of day, in fact. While the passes are still navigable." The teacup is set down. "I would know why Queen Rutela has been silent."

    Rydia will take that warning into consideration.
    And not leave her room for the whole day.
    Rydia did ask though, and she slowly works her way through that tea, grimace or no. She listens, and she listens intently when Zelda is pulled from her own thoughts and voices them.
    It's time to move, the princess says.
    Jade eyes focus on Zelda like a hawk as the princess details the plan to make a move for the realm of the Zora and Rydia's head dips in a bob.
    "Well it's about time." the child mutters. "I was getting tired of being stuffed up in this godsforsaken fortress of solitude up here on Literally-Death-Mountain.
    Even if it's not LITERALLY Death Mountain.
    "I'll be ready by morning."

  "I know. It was not my intent that this be a long-term siege." Zelda shakes her head, slowly, eyes half-closing as she looks down at her tea. "But events and happenstance have conspired; events have generally gone in Zant's favour. It has not been safe to move openly, up until now. The goddesses have told me to wait, in no uncertain terms, and now they have told me that the time is now to move. I do not know what has changed; perhaps I may never know."

  "But I have waited for long enough. I am just as anxious as anyone else to be off this mountain, with the Triforce and its constant demands for action."

  She eyes Rydia thoughtfully, considering.

  "Good." A flicker of a smile. Zelda reaches out and sorts some of those wild green strands around Rydia's face, before standing. "I had better go make good on that promise I gave Lynel. I'll be in the stables if you need me for anything. Eat the rest of this; keep the tea. I'll bring more later."

  "We'll be riding at dawn."