| Link's out all night, for the exact opposite of a fun reason |
[23 Feb 2018|11:18pm] |
Link knew he didn't technically have to step outside to use the Slate's travel feature, but it felt a little less rude to step out before traveling than just up and disappearing in the house. He knew there wasn't exactly established protocol for any class for that sort of situation, but something about it felt rude, so he followed his gut on the matter and stepped outside, closing the door gently behind him.
Breathe. Zelda would be fine, she was right, they needed out from underfoot from each other for awhile. They both had been spending the last hundred years of this fight alone, they just weren't used to being in close quarters with someone else yet, and there was a lot weighing on their minds.
May I ask, Master Link, why you chose to be dishonest with the queen? the Sword asked.
Oh for the love.
"You know very well why," he said, using the soft voice he usually used when talking to what appeared to everyone else to be an inanimate object. "Unless something comes of this, it isn't her business." Then he scowled and looked back over his shoulder at the Sword's hilt. "I noticed you got pretty quiet when I pointed out what Hylia did."
There was an almost uncharacteristic pause on the Sword's part. She usually was quick enough to reply; she was definitely far more 'human' than she'd been when she first bonded to his ancestor, and had been even by the time they had parted ways, but she still had her programming at her core.
My creator was not happy with Her decision, the Sword finally replied. She made Herself content that it might prove to serve a greater good. She paid a terrible emotional cost when She was human and had regained Her memories. And my first master forgave her. I have observed many generations of the goddess-blood princesses and my masters over the many times the cycle has repeated, and I have learned that human emotions are far more tumultuous than my creator was able to comprehend when She made Her first decision.
She didn't add it, but Link got the impression that the Sword was wondering what other choice Link thought Hylia'd had at the time. Strategically speaking, it wasn't a bad idea, and he knew She'd had little time to work out a better one. If he was as pressed for time as the goddess had been, he might not've come up with anything better either.
He sighed, realizing that he had lost that one. "All right, you're right. It'd help that if you're going to be feeding me all this information by giving me memories of your previous masters instead of talking like a history book, you'd be choosier about which ones you threw at me."
My apologies, Master Link the Sword replied. I have not had cause to reteach such a large amount of history in such a little amount of time, and your mind is fragmented and difficult to work with. I am no more divine than you are. When he didn't answer, she added, I calculate a 65% chance that you think I have understated myself.
"Smartass," he grumbled. "And don't even say it, I know I don't have a lot of room to talk. Are we all like this?"
The Sword thankfully didn't ask him to elaborate- it's not like she needed him to, imprinted into his mind. He didn't really even need to speak out loud, it just felt like a more natural way to hold a conversation. Circumstances vary and create different outcomes, but you have all shared many traits in common.
"You must've learned it from us, then." He pulled out the Slate and called up the map. The only thing he could really think to do was just go to Serenne Stable and hope she was there, and if not there, a quick jump over to Snowfield Stable would be all it took. He looked at the time on the Slate. Eight o' clock. The route that Yammo usually took took about ten hours to travel on horseback, assuming there weren't any interruptions from stal-monsters. The Sword had said there was a decent chance they wouldn't appear, but it wasn't the highest of her calculations, and Link didn't want to swear by it.
And for all he knew, Yammo had changed her route since he was last there, or had made another stop at her supplier before going back to her route. That'd complicate the process even more. This may all be a wasted effort.
"I don't suppose you have any ideas on how to find her," he asked the Sword, not really expecting a helpful answer. It was more rhetorical anyway.
I'm afraid I did not record a reading of Miss Zumi's aura to track her with, the Sword answered. It is possible, perhaps, that if she did conceive, I may be able to find her through the unborn child she carries, as it would share traces of your aura. I calculate a 40% chance of success of this.
He didn't like those odds. "Let me check the stables, first. See if they've heard anything. If she told Sprinn anything that sounds suspicious, we'll try that." He tapped the icon that lit up the markers for the travel gates, then hovered his finger over the Monya Toma shrine icon, hesitating.
Master Link, I believe you would feel better knowing, rather than delaying discovering the truth.
She was right, and he knew it. Hesitating wasn't helping anything at this point, so before his worry could stop him, he selected the shrine's travel gate, and pressed travel.
To his dismay- but no surprise -it was raining up in the Salari Plain, though not a downpour. With a frustrated noise, he pulled his hood tied around his neck up over his head, and sloshed down the hill to the stable. The ground squished under his feet while the light rain pattered on his hood, that was thankfully water resistant enough to handle what was closer to sprinkling than true rain. Still, the clouds and the rain itself made it that much darker than the near-lack of sun already did, so he put a hand on the Sword's hilt, listening for sounds of any stal-monsters trying to ambush him from behind or another blind spot.
Although the rain had disappointed him, the lack of attacks relieved him, for a two-folded reason- one, it increased the Sword's calculated odds that Ganon being gone meant the end of their attacks, and two, even though a good fight might work off some of the nervous energy pent up in the back of his mind, it also wasn't a distraction he needed.
He hopped the outer perimeter fence of the stable, pausing to pick the endura shrooms that grew under the trees and put them in the Slate's inventory, then hurried over to the stable itself.
"Well, look who it is," Sprinn said once he'd reached the counter. "The lad that convinced my only stable hand to run off on me."
Link peered past him into the stable. The three idiot 'researchers' were still in there, and he saw two people dressed in the stable system's uniforms. "Looks like you hired more help," he said.
"Took me awhile, but yeah," Sprinn said. "Needing a horse?"
"No," Link said, shaking his head. "Wondering if you've seen Zumi and Yammo."
Sprinn gave him a grumpy look. "What, you lookin' to take her from her lady friend now, too?" Then he motioned back towards the east. "They were here a few days ago, taking a rest. Said they were expanding Yammo's business to include rare flowers. Dunno why. Zumi didn't look like she was feeling the greatest, got some stomach upset when I offered her food. But they went that way, saying they were going to see if anyone near the Great Forest had seen anything interesting."
Link looked over his shoulder towards the east. The flowers thing made no sense to him, but the report of Zumi's stomach upset made him worry even more about her condition. If that was morning sickness, riding a horse wasn't the best of ideas. He wasn't even sure how she'd been handling riding a horse all this time, her hips weren't built for it, they hurt too easily trying to sit with her legs spread like that. Maybe she'd been walking. On foot, the walk taking a straight line from Serenne to the Forest would be a good ten hours or so, by horse, depending on how fast they were walking the horses, less.
Then something flashed through his memory, and he got a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"Thanks," he said off-handedly, walking away without even looking back at the stable owner. Once he was back across the path and over the fence line, he pulled out the Slate and stared at his map.
He hadn't misremembered. There was a Lynel between those two points. If he remembered right, a straight line between the stable and the Woodland Stable that sat at start of the path to the Forest would skirt just south of the beast's territory, but that assumed that not only did they take a straight line, but that the Lynel hadn't expanded or shifted his territory.
Shit.
It was only by repeating to himself that running would wear him out too fast that kept him to a light jog instead of at a sprint. He had no idea how he'd tell if the Lynel had gotten them short of hoping he caught up to them somewhere down the road; he'd never seen any remains of victims or even whatever Lynel ate as prey in one's territory, so if the Lynel had gotten the women, he wouldn't know.
Shit shit shit shit.
"Now would be a good time to try that trick of yours," he said to the Sword, keeping his voice low as he neared the Lynel's territory. It was dark and the rain was picking up the farther east he went, but that wouldn't be much help, since while that'd make it marginally harder for the Lynel to spot him, he was pretty sure that the last time he went through there, it was a blue-maned one, and those were nearly impossible to see in the dark, especially when it was raining. He'd almost run headlong into one up in northern Akkala that way, and only by the goddess's good grace had avoided alerting the creature to his presence before he got out of range.
I am attempting to search for auras with similar signatures as yours now, Master Link, the Sword replied obligingly.
He checked his map quickly, judging how closer to the Lynel's territory he was before slowing down his pace. He was nearby, and though he couldn't see or hear the beast, that didn't necessarily mean that he was safe. He had an ancient arrow on hand, if he had to, and he could always buy himself the time to nock it by using Urbosa's power to stun it, if it spotted him, but that was time he didn't want to waste.
The Sword still hadn't given him an answer by the time he heard the distant roar of the Lynel. He froze, looking around for how far north it might be, but with the rain and the dark, there was just no seeing it. He turned and went a little south before resuming east.
I'm sorry, the Sword said eventually, but I cannot sense any similar auras. This is a feat outside of my programming, I may be simply unable to perform this task.
"Don't apologize," he said, feeling comfortable that he was far enough away from the Lynel by that time to not try to keep his voice low. He sped back up to a jog. "Just keep trying. We may get lucky."
At that point, he'd call her being pregnant lucky, if it meant he could find her. Just knowing she and Yammo were alive and had avoided the Lynel and the sundry of other monsters that haunted the areas off the paths more than the normal routes that the merchants tended to follow would be a relief. He knew Yammo carried a sword and shield, but if he remembered right, they weren't the greatest, and knowing how to handle herself in a pinch wouldn't be good enough against a crowd of bokoblins while trying to defend someone who wasn't a fighter, much less a non-combatant who was pregnant. Much less against a Lynel.
Please let them have gotten by that thing. He didn't pray often, not seriously anyway, but he sure as hell was praying right then.
There were a pair of horses wandering along the path by the ruins of Rauru settlement, which wouldn't have normally meant a thing to Link, except that he knew those two used to have bokoblin riders, and there were no sign of any monsters.
Still no stal-monsters. That was a relief that he'd enjoy more later.
He slowed down to a walk as the Woodland Stable's lights became visible through the rain that was still coming down, though it had once again slowed down to a sprinkle. A check of the Slate proved that despite slowing down near the Lynel's territory, he'd made that trip an hour faster than he'd figured. Jogging instead of walking should've only reduced the trip by a couple hours, but without having to stop to deal with the bokoblins that usually haunted the Rauru Settlement ruins, or any stal-monsters, he'd made better time. It was three-thirty in the morning.
Four in the morning, and he'd been on the run for just shy of eight hours. Yup, going to definitely need that omelette when he got back to Hateno, whenever that might be. His stomach was unhappy with him just for neglecting to feed it, trying to operate the virtually no sleep he was going to get at this point was going to make him irritable from it if he wasn't careful.
Master Link, the Sword spoke up. I suggest you stop your search for the night if the women cannot be found here. I calculate the chances of finding them if you continued without rest to be 30%, decreasing the longer you go without food or sleep. The queen will also be worried if you do not return until mid-morning or later.
Link let out a defeated sigh as he avoided a particularly large mud puddle in the road where the path split up towards the Forest. Unless the women were inside the stable's guest area, they weren't there, and he was officially out of ideas where to find them. There was only one person that was visible from the outside that wasn't the stable owner, and whoever she was, she was sitting down on the ground at the open entryway to the left of the registration counter, too low to see clearly. But she was alone, and that wasn't promising.
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