You should listen to Navi DuBleu. (heyheylisten) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-08-08 20:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, link, navi |
Who: Navi and Link.
What: Training!
When: Backdated to 7/23.
Where: Link's.
Rating: PG!
Status: Complete!
On a scale of one to ten, Link’s sword skills were stuck somewhere around the middle. He mimicked what he saw in his dreams, but there was only so much he could teach himself in the waking world. In his Hyrule travels, he would come across spirit guides and ancient warriors, who taught him as he went. But not here.
He did, however, have Navi, who seemed to remember more than one thing about his swordsmanship; and so Link had called her to the farm today, so that they could try and figure this out together.
Navi was very pregnant. Very, very pregnant. She only had thirty-two days left until the baby was due, and as such, she was tending to go little and fly everywhere instead of walking. Or waddling, as she put it. Pete had been against her coming anyway, offering to carry her, which had made her laugh until she couldn’t breathe.
When she saw Link, she waved, fluttering toward the cows and letting herself grow to her human size nearby. “Oh, jeez, my ankles are not happy today. How’re you?”
Link didn’t quite understand the physics of how Navi’s belly didn’t weigh her down too much for flying. Every time he saw her, she seemed bigger than the last, even when only a few days had passed. And it still made him blush like a little kid.
“Good. Great,” he said, jogging towards where she had landed. His sword was on his hip. How could he not be great. Everything with Zelda was awesome, business was thriving, and he’d finally figured out how to sell the sparkling milk. “How are you? You, two. How are you two?”
“She’s kicking so much. I think she’s got so much energy because she’s ready to come out! Only a month left, you know.” She motioned Link over to touch her belly.
His blush deepened further, but Link stretched out a hand and placed it where he was told. He giggled as he felt the baby high-five him back, although, he guessed, with her foot. “That’s awesome,” he said. Maybe one day he and Zelda would have a little tyke to chase around the farm. Until then, he’d settle for being a fun uncle.
“The little one will be a handful, but maybe you can show her how to swordfight too?” Zelda bounced a little on the balls of her swollen feet, wings fluttering. “Speaking of, do you have it? We could find a tree that needs cutting anyway and you could practice on that.” One that was already dead. Or a barrel.
“I do,” Link replied, turning to the side and pointing out the encased sword at his hip. He jiggled the hilt. Then he pointed to the deep woods that separated his farm from the next. “We can go in there and find more than a few dead ones.”
“Oh, good. We’ll help the woods and you can train!” She took off her shoes, wandering over in her bare feet and smiling. “Soooooo. How’s Zeeeeeellie?”
Link’s blush returned full force. He chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “Mmm, really good,” he replied, sort of elongating the words and sounding shy at the same time. He knew Zelda and Navi talked a lot, but he didn’t know how much she had told about... recent romantic developments.
Navi didn’t know too much, if only because Zelda was a Lady and didn’t kiss and tell. She just knew that they were happy, and that was really the only thing that mattered to her. “I’m so glad that you guys are happy,” she beamed, squeezing his hand.
He wasn’t the sort to kiss and tell either, so that went double for when kissing involved more than kissing. Their relationship was growing deeper and that was the important thing. “Very happy,” Link replied. They walked along together into the woods, which was a pretty place during the day, even if it was spooky at night.
“Well, that’s good. You two deserve the most awesome people to love, and since you’re the two most awesome people I know, I’m glad you guys are together.” She liked the woods, and she sniffed the air contentedly as they grew closer. The trees seemed really happy.
A few meters in was a tree Link had been hoping to find: an old, dead maple. It’s branches were impressively stretched skyward, but bare. “How about this one?” he asked, turning to Navi. She would have to confirm that this was the one, after all.
Navi nodded. “That’ll work. It’s been dead for a long time.” She moved to sit down on a stump, smiling and patting it, her wings still fluttering slightly. “Okay, so let me see your stuff.”
“See me stuff...” Link repeated, squinting. What he’d learned from his dreams was how to jab and slash, and not much else. Mostly, he spent his waking hours building up the muscle needed to wield the sword at all. With a metallic zing, he pulled it from its sheath, and he began to, haphazardly, go at the tree. The damage he did was pretty random.
Fluttering closer, Navi held a hand up. “I think it’d help if you had an idea for where you were hitting. You’re kind of windmilling,” she suggested. “Here, let’s focus on riiiight here.” She pointed where a Link had cut off a big chip of bark. “Try to just hit here.”
Link chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, thinking about what Navi had meant by windmilling. He wasn’t quite sure, but it sounded like something he should avoid from there on. But hitting an exact spot was easy enough, and swinging with all his might, Link hit right where she had pointed. “M’kay.”
“See, when you’re fighting something, there’s always a sweet spot you want to go for.” Navi focused on the way Link was swinging, nodding and clapping. “Perfect!”
Link stepped closer to the tree, examining the damage he’d done. He ran his thumb across the gash. “Yeah,” he said, looking back over his shoulder. “But what am I going to be fighting on a farm in southern California? Other than--” He paused, thinking about the dreams. Zombies, ghosts, and evil robots. “Point taken.”
Navi smiled, getting more comfortable on the stump. “Every thrust should have a point. Every time you move your sword, every swing, it should have a reason.” She smiled, crossing her bare feet at the ankle.
“Yeah, but how do I know what I’m aiming for? How do I find the weak spot?” Because with a sword, getting it right on the first swing really mattered.
“You have to look. Let’s go find another tree.” If they were in Hyrule, she’d tell him to look for the flashy red thing, but in this world there wasn’t anything like that.
Another tree? he repeated, though only in his mind, as his eyes started to scan the area. If Navi wanted another tree, he’d find her another tree. There was another maple, a much smaller one, not too far away.
“Where would you attack it to do the most damage? Do you see any holes, any weak limbs? Anywhere it’s leaning?” Navi smiled, patting Link on the back.
He took the pat on the back as a push forward and began to circle the tree. Navi knew way more about trees than he did, so Link really wasn’t sure what he was looking for. The trunk had split early on, though, almost creating two trees in the process. Dividing them further seemed possible...
So Link lifted the sword over his head and came down with a mighty chop.
That made Navi cheer. Link didn’t process things as quickly as she did - he was just human, after all, and didn’t have her ability to just find things - but he’d picked it up super quickly. “That’s amazing, bravo!”
Link looked at the work he had done, quietly impressed. He turned back to Navi. “Okay, yeah. But a tree doesn’t move. It stands there and waits for you to hit it.” Here they got zombies and other evil critters.
“Which is why footwork is so important. You can dodge and bob and weave and look for a weak spot at the same time. I wish there were live targets here for you.” Navi pouted a little.
“Moblins?” he asked, squinting one eye and lifting the brow of the other high into his hair.
“Who and the what now?” Navi blinked.
“Er, giant club-swinging monsters that live in the woods...” Link replied. “They sort of have pig-faces.”
“If you see any, yes please, hit them.” Navi laughed. “They sound gross!”
Moving his sword to a guarded position, Link walked back to her side. He pressed the tip into the soft earth and rested both hands on the hilt. “You haven’t come across any Great Fairy Fountains, have you?” Navi was, after all, a fairy.
She shook her head. “Nope. If I had, I’d have told you so you could talk to them. I don’t know if there’s any other fairies here at all.” Her mouth turned downward; sometimes she wished she had someone to fly with.
He frowned and grunted. Then he sighed. “I have all these magic powers in the dreams, but I can’t make them work here. I think I’d be a lot more effective with this sword if I had the powers.”
“You can’t use them yet? What about the power slash?” Navi cocked her head. “That was something you learned on your own, right?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. There’s just no energy behind it.” Like, he could spin around in a circle, but there was no fancy WOOSH! It just made him kinda dizzy.
“Well, maybe it’ll come. I wish I could give it to you.” Navi bit her lower lip, feeling kind of terrible. What sort of teacher was she if she couldn’t teach him anything?
Link took in the look of worry on her face. But his lack of magic wasn’t her fault, so he didn’t fully understand why she was sad all of a sudden. Maybe it was just hormones. She was about to have a baby, after all.
So Link decided to give Navi a hug. He wasn’t the best hugger in the world, and she was a little difficult to get his arms around, but it was heartfelt.
“I’m sorry,” Navi wibbled. “I just ... I should be a better teacher.” She felt useless to Link.
"Hey," he said, pulling back a little. "Don't cry. Why are you crying?"
“I’m not really very useful to you,” Navi murmured. “I’m not your fairy, I’m just a pregnant lady who’s a crappy fairy.”
He frown deepened. Gesturing back to the stump she’d been sitting on before, Link sat down beside her. Affection didn’t usually come so easy to him, but with Navi (and Zelda) he didn’t think twice. “No no... I mean, you are pregnant, but you’re a great fairy, too. You’re both!”
“Promise? I’m not useless and pointless?” She had had more dreams than Zelda and Link before they’d started having a lot of them.
Link was pretty sure this was the hormones talking. Navi was, like, minutes away from giving birth. But he knew better than to suggest this out loud. “Just having you around helps me every day.”
She hugged him as tightly as she could, kissing him lightly on the cheek. “Thank you. I’m glad. I don’t know, you’re like a brother and a son and a friend and all that mashed together.” She’d have hated it if he’d thought her a burden.
Link blushed a bit. “Well, you’re like a sister and a mom and a friend to me. You’re... family.” It made him emotional to talk like that. He felt a lump in his throat. He missed his parents.
Hugging him more tightly, she nodded. “I know. You’re all I have too.” Her parents had died when she was still tiny, too tiny to remember, but she remembered her father. She’d cried when the Deku tree had died in her dreams, just like how she’d cried when her grandfather had died when she was a teenager.
He hugged her back, enjoying how peaceful the forest was at the moment. All was quiet, except for a light breeze, and everything looked lush and green. It reminded him of his days among the Kokiri, when he was just a boy dreaming of the day when his fairy would come to him.
And she’d come to him, and Navi would ever, ever leave. She just let her head rest against him, her wings fluttering. It really was perfect, and she was glad she had such a strong family.