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Post by Rii/Thell on Mar 2, 2013 10:19:19 GMT -6
Rii did not keep secrets. She was an open book, and not by chance or accident. There was no reason for her to hide anything from anyone, for that implied being ashamed of something. It suggested she was weak and afraid of who she was, of what had happened to her, of what was important to her. The people who kept their hidden sanctuaries were so afraid of the fragility of their own safe house, that they refused to tell anyone. They were so afraid of the potential destruction their own loved ones could bring, that the sanctuary would remain nonexistent to anyone but the one who was aware of the location, and it would rot away with the person inside of it, slowly succumbing to feelings and emotions that he or she was too scared to reveal to anyone else but that sanctuary.
No, Rii knew that wasn't always the case, but she knew that there were times when it was, when the people of the world were so lost in their own heads deep within their supposed sanctuaries that they let all their chances of healing slip away.
It was part of the reason she roamed around, because there were people like that, and they were not confined to the territorial boundaries of Hyrule. There were people who died inside while they appeared healthy and fit, and Rii could not stand anyone dying while she still breathed. Not if she had anything to do with it.
"Am I afraid of death?" she asked herself as she sat with her scale-covered legs dipped in the water, a single finger running along the surface of the glassy pond within the woods.
It was a good question. Many would say 'yes'. After all, she was an insistent Zora who refused to let people die if she was capable of doing something. Didn't that hint at a fear, one far more severe and detrimental than most people were willing to let on simply because many people felt that fear. That fear of death.
However, wasn't it also bad to not fear death. People would throw away their lives for the tiniest cause because they didn't care what happened to them. People would instantly turn to it as an escape route for when life became to hard. People would ignore the love of others because what good was it to them if the love of others held them back. "Please don't die," their lover would plead, but it wouldn't matter. Not to them. They weren't afraid of death, so how dare their lover try and keep them grounded, keep them safe.
In the end, Rii had no idea whether or not she feared death. "I love life," she finally informed one of the fish that was swimming circles around her calves, though he voiced no opinion on the matter in return, and she slid into the pond. She needed some underwater plants for her stock.
It was as she was carefully extracting a yellow-brown plant from its rocky bed that she heard the tromping of feet heavy with power. An abnormally large metal hand plunged into the shallow water and wrapped around her middle, hauling her upwards and out of the quiet world she had immersed herself in. Now suspended above the pond, Rii turned her head to look at who was holding her up with one hand.
She was greeted, though perhaps a term so pleasant is not the proper word, by a tower of metal. Sure, it had fingers and a chest and a helmet and other parts like any soldier did, but it wore so much more armor, and yet moved as if it wore nothing but a tunic and breeches. "Hello there," she greeted brightly.
"Rii the fish healer," the metal man ground out from somewhere within his helmet.
Rii was caught off guard by the usage of her first name. She'd only been traveling outside of Hyrule for two years. She hadn't made that much of a name for herself, had she? Not that she minded.
"That would be me. And you are?" she asked.
"My master wishes to see you," the man continued in his scratchy voice, ignoring her words completely.
And just like that, he began to walk away from the pond, his fist still almost completely wrapped around her waist and holding her up in the air.
He carried her like that all the way to their destination, a two hour walk on his part.
At long last, he clinked and clanked into a grand hall covered from floor to ceiling with peculiar grooves that wove their way along the stone walls and columns and into the archways. There was not much else to say for the room. It was as if it was a substitute, or simply a filler of some sort. Whoever had made it had desired not to reveal much about themselves. The room spoke smoothly with its architectural tongue 'This room means business, and whatever business goes on here will be directed by me, the one who built the room.' While the high quality of the marble that was carved into spoke of a delicate and careful hand and despite the fact that gems were carefully placed within the floor in intricate patterns, both signs of hired help, Rii got the feeling that in this case the man who ruled the room had built the room, crafted it with his intentions cleverly hidden within every stone, hidden in plain sight. It said that the room was distinctly his own, but he was so far superior to everyone in the room that they would have no idea of his true capabilities and character. In the room, the structural obligation the creator supplied because his status and operation called for it, all visitors were at his mercy. He was in control. Always.
"Have you been carrying her like that the whole way?" a low, acidic voice asked from somewhere within the cavernous depths of the hall.
"Yes, master," the metal man responded.
"Imbecile."
Just like that, the metal man crumpled to the floor, shattering into pieces of armor that skittered across the floor and seemed to move by themselves into the shadows of the large room. Rii winced from her spot on the floor, slowly and carefully rising to her knees and experimentally twisting her torso to see how bad the damage was. Instantly she felt faint as pain spread like wildfire from her torso to her head and the rest of her body. She quickly threw her hands back, lowering herself down to the ground to not put any pressure on her ribcage, her legs spread out before her. Still, despite her pain she thought of the man who had silently carried her to... wherever she was. She wondered what could have happened to him. Was he dead? Was his life so quickly eradicated?
"I'm sure you're too preoccupied with the damage he dealt you, but my idiot... assistant is not dead, at least not yet. I'll have to consider the matter more thoroughly. Damaged goods are not what I asked for."
"Voice," she called out, assuming 'damaged goods' referred to her.
"Voice?"
"I have no physical form to match you with. So, Voice, please spare your assistant."
"Why? He has clearly injured you," the voice replied, drifting around her for several seconds afterwards, each vowel still echoing and every consonant still lingering in the air. Most voices didn't do that, but perhaps it was because his voice felt so hollow that it rang the way it did. Or perhaps it was because he was attempting to find his way into her head with his words.
Rii gingerly ran a finger along her midsection through the cloth of her tunic. "You expected him too. You hoped he would," she stated in a voice that suggested 'isn't it obvious?' as she added a few more fingers to her gentle inspection of her torso.
"Smart fish," the male voice remarked, and Rii wondered briefly why everyone from this place seemed to be blissfully unaware of the existence of Zora. "I expect you'll pass the test I have for you."
"Currently your expectations have been met rather sufficiently," she commented. He said nothing to that, which was intriguing. She needed to say something else, push the situation further. "Would you tell me what it is, this test of yours? I haven't been tested in this manner in so long... it's so wonderfully unfamiliar."
He seemed to chuckle coldly at that. She might have joined him, as she found the situation so interesting, but she decided it would do more harm to her than good.
"Now that," the voice began, "was an unexpected thing to say. You are fit to start."
So began Rii's secret.
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Post by Rii/Thell on Dec 7, 2014 13:25:58 GMT -6
"How did you know of my race?"
Rii didn't even pause as she sprinkled a handful of herbs into a small wooden bowl, her lovingly used mortar. "A tome I chanced upon," she replied. "One with a marvelously striking depiction of a shattered mirror on the-"
"Why do you lie to me?"
"I have no answer for that at the moment, as I have yet to speak an untruth to you," Rii answered calmly, swirling the contents of her bowl.
He hummed in dissatisfaction. "I can't be fooled. Your voices surely whispered it to you."
Rii didn't say anything in return, not at first. Instead she experimentally plucked a vial of pale blue liquid from her satchel, held it to the light and - satisfied with what she saw - allowed a few drops to fall into her bowl before tucking it away. "You take an interest in the extent of knowledge I have retrieved from my voices. You use very certain terms in regards to yourself, as though your existence is so solidified in your perspective. You do not like to think that perhaps the character you have so firmly built is wavering. So-"
"Where others speak in words you speak in circles," he spat in annoyance before his body seized and he jerkily curled in on himself to cough.
She waited a beat as her fingers danced along her tools. Here we are. They wrapped around a smoothly crafted wooden pestle. His coughing died down, but evidently his throat still bothered him too much to have him say more. "So, when you say you 'can't be fooled', you speak of the reason for bringing me here. For you to have known my name when we first met, you must have chanced upon my quest before this point. Somehow you became aware of me and my healing abilities. I perhaps received a positive recommendation, someone maybe spoke highly of my skill, and you were then led to believe that I was just what you needed. That I was the cure for what ailed you." She began to grind the herbs and other materials within her mortar with the pestle, holding it close to her stomach as she swayed back and forth. "Of course, I have yet to acknowledge that I have voices, but I am aware of the magic you possess. Today you have realized what exists within my head thanks to your magic." Rii retracted the pestle to examine the mixture that was just barely starting to form. If she was to continue making it she wanted to be sure it was the desired product. Satisfied, she hummed a pentatonic scale before returning to grinding the ingredients. "But now that you know, you begin to suspect that you were tricked. Am I truly a masterful healer as someone may have told you, or a puppet dancing to a script? Were you fooled as you wish you weren't?" Her voice lacked the condescending manner to be expected from her words. Her tone was simply light and wondering. Still, the man she still referred to as 'Voice' - despite his now apparent physical form - did not respond, his lungs still working through his earlier fit. Otherwise he might have commented on how she mocked him.
Rii soon achieved the paste she desired and carefully cleaned her pestle before returning it to her pack with a musical hum. "But you needn't worry. While I cannot speak for the level of healing that may have been promised to you, I can tell you that my voices are not my ability." Fetching a dulled knife from within her bag, Rii began to lather the paste onto a deep olive-green leaf. "Being told is not the same as being taught. Repeating something is not knowledge. At least these are the conclusions I have currently drawn. I do not take what my voices tell me without investigation. Someone can tell you that fire is hot, but until you have felt it yourself do you know?" She wrapped the leaf into a tube-like shape, twirling freely around the room as she did so with his red and yellow eyes following her. "So while, I suppose, my voices did indeed tell me of the uses for a Hylian Plated Snake and a Red Cloak fish, I did not learn of them until I tried for myself. And, even then, my voices would not have told me of your race until I laid my eyes on you. Yet I knew before I saw, did I not?" The way he gritted his teeth, she knew he grew frustrated with her. But Rii giggled anyway as she approached with paste-and-leaf roll in hand.
"What is that?" His tone was skeptical at best, and his face darkened.
"Nothing my voices could know of yet." she assured him warmly as she offered it. After all, it was her own creation.
And, despite his disgruntled state, he took it from her, chewed, and swallowed.
"You speak not only in circles, but in volumes, just to reach a simple point," he remarked, trying to hide the fact that he was pleased when his lungs felt cleared and his skin cool once more.
"I think no point is simple, but you do think differently."
He raised himself from the cot, movements once again smooth. "I think you would do better to speak less of your fanciful theories on my character," he replied in a deep yet clear murmur.
Because he could not fathom how she knew.
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