002 ⚘ dream recording

[skyglider]

Sender: Link
To: everyone
Subject: passive dream recording
Warnings: death


You are running through a forest as rain pounds against your face. You move quickly and clumsily, as if your life depends upon it...because it does. Because the evil you fought to keep at bay has now been unleashed, and now your home, your whole world, is falling to ruin, crumbling around your shoulders with every footfall. And clutched in your hand is the one thing you have left to hold onto: the hand of your only living ally. It's small, and in the rain, her fingers slip from yours. For just a moment, you want to cry out, no, not her, too--

But then you turn, and you see her, crumpled on the ground in a tattered gown, hunched, devastated, dirty, but still there. You exhale. Her shoulders heave with sobs held for too long, before the dam finally breaks and it all comes crashing down around her. 

All my friends, the entire kingdom...I've left them all to die.

Memories flood your mind, crashing over you like a wave. A Zora with kind eyes and a gentle smile. A Rito warrior, watching you with disdain and judgment...and, perhaps, with thinly-veiled jealousy. A Goron who claps you on the back and calls you brother. A Gerudo leader with an approving glint in her eye. In this moment, you understand how true her words are: these four warriors, these Champions, your friends... they are all dead, and everything you've ever held off saying to them dies as well. Your heart shatters silently in your chest. 

The girl looks at you, terrified, her eyes full of tears and despair. You are frozen, gripped by your own loss for words. Because for the first time in your young life, you are facing utter defeat, and it's as terrifying as it is devastating. Your friends are gone. Your family... with the Calamity upon you, if they're not dead, they soon will be. And you...you're scared. More scared than you've ever been, and it takes every ounce of restraint you have to bite back on saying so. Now, more than ever, you must be strong. You have always been the steady force, the constant, the pillar of support when everything begins to fall apart.

So you hold it all in. You hold the girl as she sobs. You let the rain drip down your cheeks.

...

Time becomes a blur. Now you run, not away from the destruction but toward it, spurred on by the hope of one last try, one hail mary attempt at fighting your failures. One last stand. 

Guardians surround you, climbing over the carcasses of other fallen machines, machines you destroyed, each towering above with a piercing red glow in its eyes. These constructs used to be your allies. They used to be a line of defense, and now... (you feel an ache down to your very soul, you feel strength and blood draining from fresh wounds) ... well. Now they will very likely be your death. But you swore an oath to protect this girl, and you have stood with her for every challenge, every battle, every heartbreaking failure. You will certainly not stop now. 

If you believe in nothing else, you believe that this is worth it. She is worth it.

For the first time, the Master Sword feels heavy in your hand, humming with a force that feels almost like concern. There is a dark blur at the edges of your vision that inches closer, closing in on your consciousness, hovering like a threat. You hold on. The guardians train their targets on you, and you force the bitter sting of failure and terror down to some small corner of your heart where it can't trouble you. Have you ever before been this afraid? Until this moment, have you ever known true fear? You've battled a thousand enemies, but have you ever looked death in the face like this?

Run, she says. Save yourself! Go! But you do not. You would never, could never, do such a thing. Not to anyone. Especially not to her.

You hold on. Because she is that important, because you made a vow, because you can't bear to see another friend fall--

A golden light flashes across your vision. For one instant, you feel warm and safe, as if you were never hurt at all. As if the Goddess herself has blessed you with a second wind. Then the light abates; she is standing there, strong and triumphant, as the guardians fall at her feet. She did it. She has done it. You knew she could, you knew her strength would show itself in the end, and--

... And here it is. The final moment. You exhale, and you feel the change, as sudden as blowing out a candle. Your lungs can no longer take in breath. Your sword is too heavy to hold. Your legs no longer have strength to stand. Your vision fades, and you fall.

No! Link! Get up!

Her voice is distant and muffled, and it falls away as soon as you close your eyes. There, in the still, cold darkness of death, the dream ends.

Comments

action, late-night, plaza

[skyglider]

[This late into the evening, the plaza is quiet. Link is unable to describe what draws him there, but he knows he cannot remain inside; after a short, anxious few minutes on the roof of their treehouse, he finds himself making his way there almost without thinking about it. There's something comforting about it -- about being so near others, right now. He can't explain exactly what that is.

It's hard to be inside, but...it's hard to be alone right now, too, even for him.

He can be found near the edge of the plaza, in a small clearing free of foot traffic. His bow is drawn with a dreamotion arrow, bathing the clearing in thin, silvery light as he takes aim at a target --a large rock-- and...fires. The arrow veers off-course, hitting the ground and fizzling into darkness. He pauses. Breathes. Tries again.

Maybe he's a little jumpy tonight --after that dream, perhaps it's to be expected-- but when he suddenly hears the sound of an approaching footstep, his bow arm twitches, and the arrow flies straight up into the sky, vanishing into the darkness like a shooting star. He'll give you an inquisitive look, but seems unwilling to be the first to break the silence.]

sender: beat

[stillarhino]

[There was some kind of pull that made Beat decide to watch the dream as the crystal lit, especially seeing that it was Link's. But after everything was said and done, a part of him wish he hadn't.

That was hard to watch. Beat understood the feeling of helplessness well, having had bouts of it himself, whenever he let his insecurities get the better of him. When he feels like all the work he's put in was for nothing. But what had transpired in the dream was not something he could compare to anything he had ever experienced before. It wouldn't be fair to his friend to do so.

But he knew one thing. If he were in Link's shoes, he wouldn't want to be alone. If he was wrong about that, then he'll deal with the consequences then.

Without so much as a second thought, he whips out his journal and immediately writes to Link.]

yo link where you at?

[skyglider]

[His hands are shaking when he wakes. For a moment, just a fleeting second before he opens his eyes, he wonders if he's back in the Shrine, if everything that happened was just a dream. If he was meant to start all over again...but it's the ceiling of the treehouse, and the foreign sky outside, that greets him instead of Hyrule.

Link doesn't open the journal until he gets to the plaza, but when he does, when he sees Beat's handwriting, his shoulders slump, weighted down with some feeling it's hard to put into words: relief, or affection, or perhaps gratitude for his friendship. There, too, is a slight twinge of regret: he had been closer to Beat than he ever was able to be with the Champions, save perhaps for Mipha. If he had tried harder...how different might everything else have been? He takes a deep breath --his hands still shake, a little-- before writing back.]

The plaza. South side.

[It's a few minutes later when he finally pulls out his bow, looking for any way to calm himself down.]

> action

[stillarhino]

hang tight
imma be right there

[The plaza wasn't too far from where Beat's own treehouse was and in a matter of minutes, he jogs into the south side to find Link tightly clenching his bow, an arrow drawn taut against the string. He approaches none-too-discreetly, and if he needed another sign that Link was there, the bright light that flies to the air from the stray shot would've done the trick and more.

Beat's gaze strays from Link's to watch the arrow, but only for the briefest of moments before turning back to look at his friend once more. Then, slowly, he raises his hand and offers a small smile.]

Yo. Gettin' some target practice in?

[It's clearly a joke as he tries to gauge exactly how Link seemed to be feeling right now.]

[skyglider]

[Link does indeed "hang tight," so to speak, and when he hears the sound of Beat's voice, he nods in return. Target practice is a word for it, to be sure. He's missed far more than he's hit, but perhaps the real target, so to speak, was distracting himself. Recovering those memories had been difficult enough without the thought of reliving them in the form of dreams.

After his next draw, he allows the bowstring to go slack, mirroring the smile an attempt of his own that never quite reaches his eyes.]

Of a sort. Rough night?

[This, too, is a thin and half-hearted attempt at levity. He's still unable to shake off the discontent left behind by the dream, but he's trying.]

[stillarhino]

[Even in the faint evening light, Beat is able to catch the half-hearted expression on Link's face. Despite it, Beat's own doesn't falter.]

Yeah, could say that.

[With hands in his pockets, he makes his way closer toward Link. Once close enough, his eyes move over to see where he might've been firing his arrows.]

Got a friend who's havin' a bit of a bad time. Figured I better show up for him, you know? [It's only then when he sneaks a sideglance back at Link.]

[sagesurvivor]

[Ah. So it was raining when they had to run away, too.

Sheik isn't sure what exactly draws him out of his hovel after seeing that, either. The dream crystals terrify and disgust him in equal measure with their projections of that which is meant to remain private, so he should ignore this scene, just as he has with all the others. Perhaps it's a sense of responsibility, of duty towards those left to clean up their ancestor's messes. Perhaps it's for the Princess, to cast his watchful eye over the one who pushed so hard to protect her.

Perhaps it's because he knows what it means to fail too, and misery loves company.

Regardless, there he is, Mr. "Get Out of My Tree," treading softly through the shadows of the plaza at night. The arrow flies wild, their eyes meet, and Sheik... makes himself comfortable, finding a place to sit up against a building nearby. Tables, turns, etc.]

You're the "Champion" the Princess spoke of, then.

[The first person she mentioned when he asked how she had survived. She trailed off quite a few times during that recollection. Given what he just saw, he's starting to get an idea of why.]

[skyglider]

[Turnabout is fair play, or so the saying goes. Sheik's footfalls are soft, quiet enough that Link nearly doesn't hear them at all, distracted as he is. Once their eyes connect, it begins to make more sense. He was always fascinated by that aspect of the Sheikah -- the way they moved as if they had an understanding with the shadows. An agreement.

Link draws the bowstring back one more time as Sheik makes himself comfortable. He won't admit it yet, but some part of him is glad for the company.

This time, the arrow flies true, hitting the rock square in the center and dissolving into faint speckles of light. Only then does he nod, putting the bow away near where the Master Sword is sheathed on his back.]

You're the one she met at the ball. [A dot just connected, the one who told her about the demon king and the other timeframe's missing princess...] You're Sheikah.

[Somehow, that seems to be true, in spite of his appearance. The way he dresses, the way he moves...that speaks to the people of Kakariko far more than anyone else.]

[sagesurvivor]

[His gaze does trend towards that sword, admittedly. It's so strange, seeing it at someone else's shoulder, like looking through a warped pane of glass. It's not wrong for the boy before him to have it - certainly not after witnessing that projected dream - but it's an uncomfortable truth to sit with, knowing that even when the Hero of Time puts the blade to rest after their parting, circumstances will inevitably demand it be drawn once more.

Of course, Sheik speaks of none of this, tilting his head to the side instead.]

I have a difficult time imagining a Hylian mother looking upon her newborn babe and choosing to call it "Sheik." [Maybe Link has a hard time imagining a Sheikah mother doing the same thing but listen: that's not his problem.] Was she upset after our encounter?

[She said she wasn't, but call it a hunch (or the pot calling the kettle black), he suspects if she's not entirely honest with her feelings. He also suspects the Princess might be an easier topic for the both of them to discuss than the actual reason they're out here tonight.]

[skyglider]

[Something flashes across Link's face at the man's dry remark; it might have been a smile, if his heart was in it, but for now, it's only a slight upturn of his mouth. Perhaps Sheikah of that time period were a little less homogenous. From all that Princess Zelda told him, he can understand why they seem less warm -- at least, if he's any indication.

Nonetheless, he doesn't make a comment about the name -- or about how on-the-nose it seems. Instead, he pauses, thinking back to that night: the ball, his own mysterious dance partners, the other boy named Link...and the princess's updates after the fact. Finally, he shakes his head.]

More like...thoughtful. [Very much so, mixed with a faint emotional rawness that he didn't often see from her these days.]

It sounded like quite a surprising encounter.

[He searches Sheik's face for a reaction as he says it. Knowing what he does about the way he reacted upon hearing Zelda's name, it seems as though it was surprising for both of them.]

Sender: Naminé

[lethechained]

[ It's been some time since Naminé last awoke with tears in her eyes over a grief that wasn't hers.

But such is the way of things in a place where dreams are not held private, and afterward she spends some time curled in her bed with her face pressed into her knees, arms wrapped firmly around them. The covers soak up the water well enough, but she finds the aching in her heart makes her too uncomfortable to sleep even after her face has dried.

Once again, she's left with the question of acknowledgement, of whether it would help or hurt to say something, regardless of how sincerely she might intend comfort. Stewing by the window for while, pane cracked open to let in the coolness of the outside, she hopes the night air will clear her mind. It doesn't work, not really - but she waits nevertheless.

(In the distance, a light streaks into the sky. She doesn't know what it is or where it is or why it is, but it's just strange enough to break the loop of concern she's found herself in as it sparkles quietly out of existence and she watches the space where it was, still blinking in surprise.)

A minute or two later, a message arrives in his journal. Whether he'll see it right away or not hardly matters; it'll be waiting there just the same when next he looks. ]

Are you awake?

[skyglider]

[It's a little later in the night when he opens the journal once more, sitting by the fountain in the plaza. He's worn himself out, a bit, blowing off steam with weapons training, but...he's not yet ready to go back to the treehouse. He's not ready to say goodnight to the big sky overhead, and if he's being fully honest, he's a little unwilling to go back to sleep. Some part of him, irrational as it may be, is concerned that he may not wake up again. Or that the dream may progress to its logical conclusion.

He's been looking at the words on the page for a few minutes, pen hovering uncertainly in his hand. Perhaps there's an outside chance that she didn't see his dream, that the message is just a coincidence, but he doesn't really think that's true. So what does he say? What does he do? Before the Calamity, he might have ignored the message for a while, might have let it go in favor of tackling some other task at hand. He reflects, for a moment, on how easy that used to be -- how simple it used to feel, to keep everything so close and so quiet. Some part of him believes it should feel like a good thing, a positive change, a sign of how kind and welcoming the people here have been. But while honesty is a privilege, it is also very, very hard, and tonight, that is what he feels most keenly.]

I am.

[It feels foolish, knowing he has agonized so much over two short words. Part of him feels an urge to apologize, as if he could somehow control the contents of his dream, as if he could choose who saw them. Knowing how irrational it is to take ownership of that, he instead continues,]

Are you alright?

[He knows all too well that a harrowing dream is difficult to watch.]

[lethechained]

[ By this point in the night, Naminé's secondhand distress has had time to ebb into a duller sadness, and she rests her head fully on one arm that lies along the sill of the window. Drowsiness has made its gradual way back into her eyelids; perhaps she's drifted off a few times, now, and hasn't realized it. Finally gathering enough willpower to lift herself up - and stretch, though that wasn't the initial plan - she tells herself she'll just check for a response one last time, then head back to bed. Truthfully, by now she's under the assumption that Link's already gone back to sleep himself, though she finds it hard to imagine after a nightmare like that.

But-- to her surprise, there are fresh words waiting on the page. She rubs her eyes once, just to make sure she's seeing correctly, and then settles back into her still warm seat. ]

Yes. [ Fortunately, there's very little delay before her response. She decides it's for the better not to turn the same question on him, though she wants to ask it. Instead, ] Nothing happened to me.

[ Even though it might have felt like it, in the depths of the dream. Rarely does she experience such things so keenly, but she supposes maybe the memories that made up the vision were just too strong. (She tucks her legs that much closer to herself, as if to ward of some rain-chilled cold that doesn't exist in her cozy treehouse.) There must be a confession one way or another, lest her late night question go unexplained; Naminé doesn't let herself waffle about the details for too long, and comes clean with a, ]

But I think I understand a little more of what you were saying that day you came to visit me and I treated your wounds.

[ That's implication enough, she supposes. And there's sympathy that weighs down the end of her pencil, but when she puts it to the page... it doesn't feel right to acknowledge it, to apologize to him for something that took place long before they ever met, and leave it at that. She hesitates, then, ]

You don't have to answer, but...
Was that really what happened?

[ Witch that she is, she knows a recollection when she sees it, even when it's wrapped in a dream, and yet-- as little as she feels she has a right to, she finds she still wants to grasp this experience as completely as she can. (To understand him better, perhaps - but mainly to see what, if anything, she can do to help.) ]

[skyglider]

[Link leans back against the fountain, head resting on the cool stone as he lets the words appear before looking at them. He might not be a particularly long or well-spoken writer, but he knows well enough to let people have time to sort through what they're trying to say.

(He isn't avoiding reading it. Not at all.)

Quietly, he exhales, finally turning his attention from the night sky back to the journal. What he was saying that day... Ah-- of course. A pang of fresh sadness wrenches at his chest, the metaphorical wound torn open once again by the memories of the dream. He only allows it to grip him for a moment. In a way, it was easier when he couldn't remember any of it. But the faint sadness in Mipha's expression when he could only vaguely recall him was a sharp reminder that it's only easier for a moment. That everything has long-reaching consequences.

Including the conversation Naminé is talking about now.]

I'm sorry I wasn't more honest at the time.
Sometimes it's hard to talk about. I don't know what to say.

[Don't know what to say seems like a pathetic understatement. At the same time, isn't it so fitting for the struggle? There's such a wide gulf, sometimes, between what he thinks and what he says. No wonder people like Princess Zelda and Revali had so many ill feelings toward him at first. But whether someone more charismatic would have better borne the weight of the Master Sword, it still landed in his hands. Speculation doesn't really change that.

The rest of her words...in a way, that's easier to answer.]

Yes.
I was supposed to save my home from a terrible fate. I failed.

[Writing it so plainly makes it feel very matter-of-fact. Perhaps the truth is a little more complicated, perhaps he should be a little more kind about it...but the truth is that countless people died because of his failings. He can't bring them back, and he can't bring meaning to the loss of their lives, but he owes it to the people still living to try to make things right.]

[lethechained]

[ 'More honest?' She finds the words on her own lips as she reads them, brow pinching together in the process. Perhaps it means he recalled more before that point, then, and merely didn't mention it - but there's no fault in that, and Naminé finds herself quite firmly opposed to the notion of Link laying the blame on himself in any part of what he has to say. Her pen is restless, hovering close to the page, but she holds her wrist steady through sheer force of will until his own words stop flowing.

By then, she has all the more to object to; her first few sentences, consequently, have a slightly more intense slant to them than they otherwise might. ]

You don't need to apologize to me for that.
Even if we are friends, that doesn't mean you have to tell me everything.
There's no one in this world or any other who doesn't have secrets.

[ Strange, how she feels-- upset, both because of that first part of his message and because of the latter one, and how the feeling bleeds over between the two. Lips firmly pursed, she forces herself to take a beat, sort her thoughts. Then, ]

Besides, I wouldn't have wanted you to be in even more pain just so that you could tell me about it.
It's not hard to understand why it would be difficult for you to speak of the past.

[ And she finds yet more palpable regret in having inquired as far as she did about tonight's dream itself, for that matter, but the genie's out of the bottle now, so perhaps all that's left to do is clean up after the fact. Looking at those last few sentences of his, the furrow in her brow deepens as Naminé tries, what feels like futilely, to put her feelings into proper words.

Because the way he's phrased it is so unkind - toward himself, that is. Reining her concern in hinges mainly on telling herself she's reading into it, that the austere language is the result of honesty rather than self-deprecation. (But no, he said 'supposed to,' and the despair she'd felt in his dream...) ]

Whatever it was that happened, I'm sure you did everything you could.
You don't seem like someone who would try any less than their hardest.

[ Maybe it's cold comfort - maybe there's no warm kind that could possibly be offered in the wake of such a terrible end to a story like that one - but she'd prefer to make her thoughts on the matter crystal clear. ]

Sender: Martel Yggdrasill

[untwisted]

[She knows she hasn't met you (though she recognizes Zelda, at least), but some of this hits pretty close to home for her, particularly the dying part. And it's a bit too lucid for her to believe it's just a nightmare. Martel is compelled to say something.]

I'm sorry. That must have been very difficult.

I don't believe we've met, but if you ever need to talk to someone, I can listen.

[skyglider]

[Once he's had some time to steady himself, to sort through his thoughts and keep his hands from shaking, Link's attention turns to the journal. Even then, he hesitates in his response, fully aware that he has put the sleeping population of Reverein through something that no one has asked for.

A somewhat hesitant dot of ink is the first thing that appears, as if he's not sure exactly what to say. Which is fairly accurate -- he doesn't.]

That's a kind offer to make to a stranger.

[Hm. It doesn't feel right to leave it at that, does it?]

Thank you.

[untwisted]

You're welcome. I've been in a similar situation, so I can certainly understand some of these feelings if that's what you need. I'm willing to just lend an ear too.

[skyglider]

[What he needs...? He isn't entirely sure that he knows. But if she really has been in a similar situation--]

In a similar situation...what do you feel you would need?

[untwisted]

[Now she's thinking too. So much has happened since that's bothered her a whole lot more than the "dying" part.]

I suppose the ability to speak my feelings aloud to someone who can hear them. My sadness, my regrets, those sorts of thing. It's been a very long time, though, so I may be forgetting something.

sender: Zenkichi

[lemiserable]

[Gods this is far separated from an issue with a sentient oven that it throws Zenkichi off and he winces at the shared dream and everything it represents. He's suffered his own devastating loss, but he never hadn't what seems like an entire country on his back. Well, maybe with the Phantom Thieves, but that was different. They didn't lose.]

Hey um, shit I ain't good at this but if you wanna talk about it. Well. There.

[Nailed it.]

[skyglider]

[Ah-- a familiar name. As uncomfortable as all of this is --the twin feelings of invasive discomfort and guilt-- some part of him is also grateful to be reached out to.]

Thank you.

[A beat.]

... I'm not very good at this, either.

[Talking...about things...]

[lemiserable]

Heh, it's fine, I'm learning to share more in this world...it's not exactly seen as typical back home.

[Real men don't cry or something stupid.]

Besides, it's not like we can control these things, or what we share.

[skyglider]

As am I. Talking has never been my strong suit.

[Indeed, not until he arrived in Reverein. It's something he's been hoping to adjust...at least in small ways.]

Yes. Unfortunately, that's very true.

[lemiserable]

Ahh I did have you as the strong but silent type when we first met.

[Trying to lighten the mood a little bit.]

That's why you can't blame yourself. At least for that.