World Tree MUSH

    It has not been long since Rydia's return to Snowpeak Garrison, but from the moment she arrived, the girl has been... Wandering the halls as though she hadn't seen them in a decade. Exploring every room and chamber as though she hadn't seen them in ages. And if anything she says is true, it really HAS been that long since she's seen the place that she's considered 'home' for the longest time.
    Right now, though, in spite of the cold, she's spending her time in the main courtyard, giving Chocobo the brushdown of a lifetime, as though she hasn't done that in ten years either, running a brush dilligently through golden plumage, much to the great bird's satisfaction.

    Rydia is, of course, not alone.

    For Yumi, it's only been a week - but it's been a pretty devastating week. It's probably fairly obvious to Rydia that the senshi blames herself for failing to rescue the summoner, and on top of that, the ten years of age on Rydia's part have made her so different that Yumi is still trying to really take it all in. Especially the fact that this makes Rydia older than her, at least as far as she knows.

    But wow, this sure does make things awkward. It's rare for Yumi to really be at a loss for words, but she keeps trying and failing to come up with anything to say. So for the moment, she's just kind of quietly watching.

  It's been a long, miserable week, but now the sun is starting to come out from the clouds. Figuratively speaking. Literally speaking, the sun is absolutely behind the clouds and it's absolutely going to snow tonight, to the surprise of no one who knows the area.

  Zelda has let Rydia have her distance, for the most part; her aura less of icy anger, now, and more of quiet contemplation. There's always work to do around the garrison, though, and so the princess is pushing snow out of the courtyard with a broom. Once in a while she glances Rydia's way, indirectly, but doesn't really draw attention to the Summoner.

  She does shrug a little helplessly at Yumi once Rydia's attention is more totally absorbed by Chocobo, though. What do you say...?

    Seven days. To have passed the time of ten years in seven days is a chronological nightmare in and of itself, but if Yumi and Zelda were agonized for seven days... Rydia of Mist had to deal with that for a decade.
    It's a good, long, moment before the green-haired girl decides she's done a good enough job, one hand cupping Chocobo by the beak and brushing there for a moment before she glances over her shoulder.
    "It's..." She starts to speak but trails off. What can she even say after so long?
    "Sorry." She says after a beat. "I haven't seen him in so long, I just..." A shake of the head and she huffs.
    "It doesn't matter. I'm here now. The two of you need to stop beating yourselves up for what happened because it sure wasn't your fault."
    Yep. Still razor sharp.

    Well, that hasn't changed one bit at least. Rydia is still surprisingly capable at cutting right to the heart of things.

    Yumi glances Zelda's way briefly, caught off-guard by the incisive comment towards both of them... and then lets out a soft, self-deprecating chuckle as her attention returns to Rydia. "You can say that, and logically I know you're right. But a part of me can't stop blaming myself anyway. I'm just... doing the best I can to shut it up, I guess. It's not easy."

    But with the ice broken, she can at least cross the distance over a little closer, looking Chocobo over as she talks. "May have a few choice words for Leviathan if we ever meet again, though. Sorry if I'm overstepping my bounds a bit, I hate being disrespectful, but..."

    But he swallowed Rydia whole and carted her off to a mystical land without so much as a word of explanation. She's still not happy about that.

  The princess only sighs and shrugs at Yumi again, this time in an illustrative 'well, some things never change' kind of gesture. Trust Rydia to cut to the quick. The Summoner doesn't have the patience to be any other way.

  "If it wasn't our fault, than whose?" Zelda lifts an eyebrow, turning to sweep snow away from the main pathway. "To what purpose was this for? Lord Leviathan does not strike me as... talkative." If she feels any particular animosity toward the sea serpent, Zelda keeps it tightly controlled, tone neutral.

    "It wasn't your fault." Rydia repeats, quite pointedly to Zelda and her arched brow, as she releases Chocobo to let him wander back to the stables. The bird at least has taken her return quite well, leaning that great long neck down to brush his beak along her cheek before he turns to leave.
    "It's... More complex than that." She says after a beat. "Leviathan knew what he did... Probably wouldn't be recieved so well, but... As the last of the Summoners of Mist, there wasn't really anyone left to teach me how to be a proper Summoner." She says slowly. "So the Eidolons decided and took it on themselves to teach me. ... Even if it was kind of abrupt. And a little scary at the time."

    "..."

    There's several seconds where Rydia receives a flat, unending stare from Yumi.

    Then she returns her attention to the chocobo before replying. "Okay, now I've got a lot of choice words for Leviathan. You know if he'd just explained that, we'd have been fine with it, right? And he put all those sailors in danger besides. That goes a little beyond 'abrupt'." It's a rare moment of Yumi getting legitimately heated. Metaphorically, anyway. Grumble.

    "...but this isn't a time for me getting upset," she realizes after a second or so. There's a soft, deep breath. "I'm glad you're back, Rydia. Even if it's..." This time, her laugh is a little more genuine. "It's a little weird that you're older than me now."

  Zelda doesn't back down, brow still arched. She does watch as Chocobo wanders back to his place in the stables. Aside from a half-hearted huff from the giant warhorse, the building is quiet. The whole courtyard seems to be. The silence before the storm, to go by the ominous northern sky.

  "I suppose he saw no reason to communicate any of this." The Hylian sighs, shaking her head. No, probably not. Gods are not really obligated to do anything. "Well, what's done is done." Summer-blue eyes lift to Rydia. "Have you learned, then...?"

    "Mmmmm..." Rydia spends a beat rubbing at the back of her neck, lips pursed into a thin line as sher lowers herself to sit at the stairs in front of the door into the garrison.
    "He's not all that bad." She says on the topic of Leviathan. "I don't think he can take on human form outside of the Feymarch." She murmurs thoughtfully.
    Which means she's been exposed to a very different Leviathan than from what Zelda and Yumi have said. "But he had his reasons." She says slowly before dipping her head in a nod.
    "... I've learned much. Even Ifrit taught me how to wield fire. Though there wasn't anyone able to teach me better White Magic, that... Kind of fell to the wayside in my training as a result."
    Pause.
    "... Yeah, no, it's really weird."

    'Ifrit taught me how to wield fire'.

    That, more than anything, tells Yumi just how much has changed. Before she was kidnapped, the summoner had... started using fire. Sparingly. Briefly. But she was still more than a little nervous about it. To have her so casually mentioning it is probably the most surprising change. "Wow. Fire. I'm... I'm sorry I wasn't there to see it. So you're okay around it now?"

  "So, his power is bound in that place." Going by the Hylian's tone, she was expecting that. "That isn't surprising. If you are truly the last Summoner of Mist, I suppose it was in all of their best interest to teach you the Craft." There is an audible capital letter, there.

  At Rydia's admission that she learned how to wield fire, both of Zelda's brows creep upward. "Oh...?" Interesting. Very interesting. "It really was ten years." For Rydia to mention it so cavalierly suggests there is a healing factor of time at play, here.

  To the rest, Zelda shakes her head. "If you cannot use healing magic any more... worry not. Better for you to focus your attention on the forces you now command, yes? The rest of us can see to others' hurts."

    "It wasn't easy." Rydia admits, grimacing. "Ifrit is wild and unpredictable. I got more than a few burns just learning." She says with a shudder. "It's... Not the same. I can use it. I don't enjoy using it. Or being around it still." But apparently it's not as crippling as it once was.
    "It was ten years." She confirms. "And there wasn't a day that went by that I wasn't thinking about the two of you, and the others." She huffs. "I was always so worried. I didn't know how much time had passed here I thought of... So many things that could have happened without me..."

    "Don't worry about the healing magic," Yumi agrees. "I got that absentee Guardian back in Natsuto to agree to heal me when I need it." She sounds... a little smug? Just a bit. "I shouldn't have to burden you with it anymore, either, Zelda." She's particularly happy about that part - it's always bothered her how badly Zelda exhausts herself every time.

    For what Rydia says next, though, Yumi is silent. She listens and takes mental note, but she says nothing. Not until some of that anguish comes to the surface, the worry of ten years without seeing those she cares about. The worry about what might happen, whether they'd remember her, whether they'd even be the same people... Yumi knows Rydia well enough to know that it probably bothered her - and maybe still bothers her - much more than she's letting on. And she's already letting on quite a bit.

    Well fine. Yumi can think of a way to reassure her she's still Yumi. And probably flabbergast her at the same time.

    "Then I'll be your fire."

    There's a soft flare of gold-white radiance as sheets of magical light wrap themselves around Yumi. A soft rush of warmth blows away the snow near her feet as boots take shape. In the blink of an eye, the senshi is transformed. Yumi's armor clunks softly as she steps forward, one pace, two, and drops to a knee at the foot of the stairs in front of Rydia.

    "If the flicker of a flame still bothers you, then I'll wield it in your stead. I'll burn as bright as the sun so you don't have to. Let my magic light the dark, my heat drive out the cold, if it be what you need. It's been ten years, but Prominence is still your blade to command, if you want it."

    Zelda might be getting flashbacks to their first meeting right about now.

  "It was only seven days, here, but there wasn't a day to go by that we weren't thinking of you," Zelda avows, before her mouth twists in a half-smile. "No, I haven't liberated Hyrule Castle. Not yet. You'll be by my side as I do, though, fear not."

  Rydia's been involved with Hyrule since the beginning. It would be unfair to launch that siege without allowing Rydia the chance to participate. She's earned it.

  To Yumi she only shakes her head. "It is no burden. Truly. To offer is who and what I am. The offer is of course still open."

  Yumi's avowal, however, earns a thin smile from Zelda and a raised hand, fingers splayed. White-gold flame flickers between her fingertips, illuminating her palm and face briefly before she lets them flicker out.

  "And so too shall I."

  She's quiet, though. Maybe she's thinking about her first meeting with Yumi. Maybe she's respecting the ritual; letting Yumi do her thing and not interrupting. She knows all about the whole importance of ritual thing.

    Seven days and ten years are a very stark difference, but it soothe Rydia to know that in the time she was gone, short though it may have been for the others, that she was in fact not forgotten or left behind.
    But it did bother her.
    Every night for far too long, living in the Feymarch so far away, only able to return to her friends after a literal decade had passed doing nothing but training, sacrificing her entire childhood to prepare herself for war against the darkness of Zant and Baron. She really did give everything up for those causes and now here she is. And here is Yumi swearing-- not just to be the force of fire for her, but deeper than that, to be the force that Rydia can rely on in her time of need- renders the Summoner staring in silence for a long few beats.
    "I..." She says haltingly, looking to Zelda for a split second, in that same confused and hesitant manner of an eight year old and not the eighteen year old she is now as Yumi takes to knee before her.
    It has been ten years, but as Yumi says, Prominence is still there, ready to protect and defend her just as it had been before she left.
    "I..." Rydia starts to speak, but trails off for a beat.
    "Mn... Yumi. Zelda. Thank you." Murmured as she takes a steadying breath. "I accept."

    "Welcome back," Yumi replies simply, rising up to her feet again. Her armor comes apart into a shower of twinkling motes of light, falling away and dissipating, and the redhead straightens her clothes a bit. She might just be blushing a tad after something so formal. Ahem. "I think we should take tonight easy. I've got a couple new board games we can try, as long as you take it easy on us," she cautions with a wry glance at Zelda.

    Pause. "And Pocky," she adds, giving Rydia a cheerful grin. "I've got a good stockpile of Pocky on hand. Been ten years, right?"

  The Hylian's eyes are cool and distant as Rydia looks to her, offering no help or answer one way or the other. She might as well have the stony serenity of the Statue of the Goddess in the temple; skin of alabaster, cryptic smile turning her lips.

  That's definitely Rydia, even if the face is a young woman's instead of a girl's. They are undeniably the same person.

  "Welcome back," Zelda echoes, with pride.

  It morphs smoothly into an expression of airy unconcern at Yumi's side-note. Who, me...?