revivalproject | [Calibrations] It's dangerous to go alone, take this

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[Calibrations] It's dangerous to go alone, take this

WHO: Link and you!
WHERE: Link's Calibration room
WHAT: Calibrations
WHEN: June 10th to July 10th
WARNINGS: CW for death in the pool memory

On first appearances, Link's room is the inside of cosy little cottage.

There's rustic wooden furniture - that will appear to many as old fashioned - and Link is humming away as he cooks something at the small corner that serves as the kitchen. Propped up on the wall next to Link and the kitchen is the Sword the Seals the Darkness, a blade that many will recognise as the one that has been a constant presence on Link's back.

Draped over the back of one of the dining table chairs is the Champion's tunic, a distinctive blue garment. Sitting on that same chair, hidden partially by the fabric of the tunic, is the Sheikah Slate, a rectangular device that's sitting on one of the chairs. Atop the table itself sits the Thunder Helm.

In one corner, there's a small bookcase. On the shelves are a few assorted objects: a massively large scale, and a whistle.

There is, however, something odd that happens in this room. Sometimes, if you tilt your head at just the right angle or look out of the corner of your eye, the appears of it shifts - like a lenticular image. The cottage will be gone, and Link won't be humming away at the kitchen anymore. Instead, it will be a mysterious underground space, lit by soft blue glowing lights and faint orange constellations on the walls.

In the middle of this space is a small pool, or perhaps a kind of tub. It's filled with a bright blue water - and inside, as well, is Link. He's completely under the surface, dressed only in a pair of boxers, eyes closed. He's not moving.

To one side of the chamber, a picture hands on the wall.

On the other side, a pedestal - out of which grows a single silent princess flower.

And if, while within the mysterious underground space, if you tilt your head and gaze in just the right way again, there will be another shift. This time, it's strange in a different way. Large sections of the space seem to be just...gone, leaving behind only a blank white nothingness. In between those blank spaces are what is perhaps stone walls, something that might - maybe? - look like a room in a castle. But the details that do exist are so fuzzy and indistinct, it's hard to really tell.

There are a few pictures on the walls. But they feature only people with blank, featureless faces.

No matter what you touch, or interact with, there are no memories to be found here. And Link isn't anywhere to be seen at all. From this place, he is absent.

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No matter Gladio's wishes, Link sleeps on. Unable to hear anything Gladio might tell him.

And yet, there is perhaps a place where he can speak to Link. There is still the cottage. Shifting his gaze in just the right way is what brought Gladio here - perhaps doing the same again will take him back.

(Or perhaps, take him somewhere else again entirely...)

When he tilts his attention, hoping to find solutions, he shudders to find himself in a new place. And there he was. A place that is so... blurred. Empty. Forgotten.

"Lonely," he says with a shuddering breath. He moves around, touching and hoping and trying to find something. But... No.

Nothing.

"Hell."

It's a space where much seems to be...missing. Like once there was something here, but now it's simply gone. Replaced with nothing but gaps and blank void.

Link is not here. Not even asleep. And neither are there any memories, no matter what Gladio touches.

But with a shift of his gaze, Gladio can bring himself back to the Shrine. And from there, back to the cottage - where there will now be a door, if Gladio chooses to walk through it.

Link is also there. Awake. He's at the kitchen - it looks like those water buffalo steaks have just finished cooking.

There's a meal to be had, if Gladio chooses to stay a little longer.

Listen, there's a meal to be had, and Gladio's sitting down.

"You've got memory issues, don't you?"

Settling the steaks and a nice side dish of sauteed vegetables on two plates, Link sets one down in front of Gladio. Before he moves to sit down himself with the second plate, he nods.

"Shrine of Resurrection took my memories." His eyes glance over towards the chair next to Gladio - upon which lies a rectangular tablet. It bears a striking similarity to the technology of the mysterious underground space Gladio just visited.

Then he takes his plate, and settles down in the seat across from Gladio.

Well fuck, he's not turning away side dishes either. So he pulls his plate toward him.

"A lot of parallels between your journey and ours. Noctis didn't lost memories so much as gain them sorta."

Of course, can't just have meat and nothing else. You get sick, that way.

"Gain?" Link asks, before tucking into his own meal. When it comes to food, he doesn't hesitate.

You really do. Teach Noctis that.

"He got trapped in a crystal. Saw everything apparently."

Link thinks about this.

“…Everything is a lot.” Sometimes just getting his own snippets of memory back was overwhelming enough. Getting everything sounds…unpleasant.

"Yeah, quite a lot," Gladio agrees with a nod. He doesn't know if it was everything everything, but he knew it was a lot. "The god responsible wanted to use him as a weapon against darkness."

And Gladio still disapproved of that.

And there's those parallels again.

Link's eyes drift over to the Sword in the corner. A holy artifact, one he was chosen to wield. Not exactly the same as Noctis's situation, most likely. But similar, all the same.

"...Didn't the darkness need to be defeated?" he says softly. Because even if being chosen had been...difficult...Link also need that it had been necessary. It wasn't a duty he would choose to set aside, even if he could.

His king, Noctis Lucis Caelum, the True King, the Chosen One, the King of Light. Yeah, there were a lot of parallels. Noctis's weapon, though, was healing light and his very soul.

"It did. But the way it was done... Maybe the gods need to stop messing around and trust us to solve the problems they created."

Noctis, though, agreed more with Link.

"They created?"

That certainly sounded differently to Hyrule. The origins of the Calamity were shrouded in mystery, but it certainly wasn't something Hylia had created.

"Bahamut," he says with a sigh. "Fucking dragon. Thought he'd save the world that way. Only he expected everything to get destroyed first."

Now, Link is staring, almost incredulous.

"You have an evil dragon?"

This...is not at all what Link knows dragons to be like.

"More like callous dragon god," Gladio explains. Other dragons can be shitty too, but they're just creatures.

Link, meanwhile, is still frowning. A dragon was like a thunderstorm or waterfall. Something powerful and awe inspiring, but not callus. They simply...were. Like natural phenomena.

"Was it corrupted?"

"Corrupted? No, that was Ifrit. By the Starscourge. We don't know how."

They suspected. Ardyn was almost definitely behind it. Which just made that a threat that Gladio had not enjoyed facing before. But they had.

Link frowns. He doesn't know any of these names. But he does know how a dragon - or something as powerful as one - could be corrupted.

Pausing in his meal, he gets up. Moves over towards the bookcase. Picks up the large scale resting upon it, and brings to place it gently on the table before Gladio.

It is, quite clearly, an invitation to touch it.

Well that makes sense. Gladio takes another two bites of the meat before reaching out to place his hand on the thing.

The top of a tall, snowy mountain. Link walks towards a spring of water surrounded by ice, well-dressed for the freezing cold weather in Rito-feathered armor.

Wrapped around the mountain's is the massive form of a dragon. It's skin covered in a sickly, glowing red substance - from which emerges glowing red eyes, all over its body. Its breaking is pained, and heavy.

At the spring, there is a statue of a goddess. A voice emerges from within it - a voice that is heard by the mind, not the ears.

"You have done well to find your way to this spring. You who have overcome numerous trials and obtained the Spirit Orbs...The one you see before you is an attendant to the Spring of Wisdom. This is Naydra, the blue spirit of Lanayru.

"This servant of the Goddess has looked over the spirits of this land for ages, unknown to the world of man. However, the dreaded Malice unleashed by Calamity Ganon has possessed its body and reduced it to this state.

"You who have received the Spirit Orbs...Free Naydra from this Malice. Show what your power can achieve!"

At that moment, a massive eye on the dragon's forehead opened. Link pulled out his bow, striking one of the eyes.

Struck, the dragon is provoked into movement, climbing up into the sky. A mystic wind follows in the dragon's wake - a wind that Link uses to open up his paraglider, and follow the dragon into the sky.

He shoots each one of the eyes infesting the dragon's body. With each shot he hangs, mid-air, as time seems to slow around him.

Then the last eye is struck - and the dragon glows, the malice falling away from its body like dust. It climbs back to it's perch atop the mountain, and Link follows.

The statue speaks once again.

"Thanks to your efforts, Naydra, the spirit of Mount Lanayru, has been freed from the grips of an evil power. But a single ceremony remains. Now...loose your arrow through the body of Naydra to free the spirit of the region!"

He draws his bow. Aims. And lets loose an arrow, straight towards the dragon's scales. The dragon flies off once more, but a glowing scale falls behind in front of Link.

"That is the spirit Naydra's scale. It fell when your arrow struck. It serves as proof of the courage you received from the one who served the sprint since ancient times. Come...Offer a scale from the blue spirit Naydra to the Spring of Wisdom."

Link picks up the scale. Walks towards the water. And carefully places it within the water. It glows with a burst of light, and a door opens in the mountain behind the statue.

"Your path has shown itself. Now go forth."

Go forth indeed. Gladio feels the memory release him and he hums thoughtfully.

"That looks less like the sort of dragons we have. A lot less like it. Maybe like a cross between a Jormungand and a Jabberwock. Only scale up the size a bit."

Actually, that's a very good description of it for his own mental reference.

Gladio gets a blank look.

Link has absolutely no idea what a Jormungand or Jabberwock is. Other that something that apparently looks a bit like a dragon.

It's okay. He's finishing his meal now.

"I should get going, man. But if you ever need to talk, or want to listen..."

It's clear that Link will be just about the only person who will ever get it.

Link nods. Although he's probably not going to do much in the way of talking. It's not something he does all that much.

But he's good at listening. Link's always happy to do that, whenever Gladio needs.

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ziedrich_bearer - 2023-08-21 18:27 (UTC) - Expand

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