Post by Eldrin/Vai on Apr 24, 2016 23:16:38 GMT -6
Unto the heavens, the fire raged. Its warm glow cast the velvet black of the sky with but a hint of its own blazing colors. The black itself was speckled across with white pinpoints of light, swirling in their masses into fantastical patterns, as if some primordial deity had seen fit to put paint to canvas for all creation to see. The centerpiece of this divine art was the moon, big as an ever-watchful eye. It endlessly cast its own superior illumination to battle the glow of the fire. Across the surface of the moon the black silhouette of a single cloud slid gently and insubstantially by. The gentle ebb and flow of the ocean tide washed over the white sand, ever wiping its slate clean. The ocean stretched ever on toward the horizon, too restless to reflect the portrait above. Instead it offered a contrast, churning black, only broken by the occasional white burst of foamy surf, violent and stark, yet gone just as soon.
It was the 8th Decennial Paradise Carnival. Eighty years ago today, a pirate ship had left port from these very same waters. It sailed along a well known route, but never arrived at its destination. Instead, the crew made landfall in an ancient, abandoned land. This land was littered with the ruins of an ancient civilization. The pirates returned to Termina, and attempted to lead others to this mysterious land, dubbed 'Idyll'. However, they soon discovered that no other ship could travel to this land... and the original pirate ship could travel only between the two. The ship, the Eternal Return, soon became more of a ferry, taking people to and from the mysterious land of Idyll. Over the years, many of the less privileged folk of Hyrule and Termina bought voyage to this paradise, until a teeming settlement formed on the shores of Idyll. It turned to tradition for the Eternal Return to come to Termina every ten years, and take back more settlers. Eventually, these homecomings became a sort of holiday to the downtrodden underground. As it grew and grew in popularity, it became known as the Paradise Carnival... when destitute people would could from all over, offering every rupee they had managed to save in their entire lives, just for a chance at Paradise.
All about the bonfire, the free folk of these lands danced and moved. The instrumental music pounded through the crowds, moving them in mad waves. It was upbeat and nearly deafening, but struck a fire in the loins when heard. It struck some nerve and urged one the grind and move with it. The vocals of a lone songstress penetrated it all. Where the instruments were upbeat, her voice was solemn and mournful, but passionate. As the instruments entranced the body, her ethereal intone resonated within the soul. Her lyrics spoke of a scorned lover, of her sorrow, of her brutal retribution and of how she long for death, her true lover. She was the avatar of these broken people. She was a simulacrum of the beauty, the melancholy, the lust, and of the primal brutality that only the struggle for survival could truly invoke. The masses loved it, and hated what it turned up inside of them. They flowed their heads to the music, they threw their arms and bodies into the air rhythmically, wildly. They screamed, they cried, they sang along.
Performers all around the carnival plied their trades. Pyrokinetics spat plumes of flame into the air, coloring their art with foreign minerals and chemicals. Blue, green, pink, purple, rainbow patterned. The same powders were being thrown randomly into the bonfire, causing it to explode upward into the night with various colors. The writhing crowds were splashed with breathtaking light shows of colored flames. On the beach, a sand-shifting Gerudo pirate was dueling a Zora hydromancer. Spears of hardened sand striking arcs of salty water, all the while, a section of the crowd cheered madly for one side or the other. Jugglers, troupes of dancers, jokers, sword-swallowers, strongmen, any and all sorts of freaks did what they did best. Various cartels were selling countless opiates, aphrodisiacs, and hallucinogens throughout the carnival. Booze seemed more plentiful than the water in the sea itself. It seemed everyone had a bottle, and any level of quality could be found. Fine brandy, pirate grog, and everything in between.
There was no synchronization to their actions, no overall theme. Nothing but freedom controlled them. No laws. No masters. No kings. No gods. They were the forsaken... the unloved. Society shunned their likes, for their heritage, or for their pasts, or even for their lifestyles. But now, it mattered little. Noses would not be turned up on this night. Pirates and poor folk, hacks and whores. Fortune tellers, who couldn't see the future well enough to know that another career choice might have served them better. Traders, whose wares could not be bought in the light of day. It was their time to shine. Not as a diamond would, no, but as the reflection of a cat's eye in shadow. For they were the strays of this world. Hungry, filthy, destitute, homeless... and brutally predatory.
The man that passed through these crowds oft considered himself one of them. After all, he had, for all his life, lurked in the shadows. He'd been a starving child, spit upon by life. He'd been a teen servant, enslaved to a rich family in all but legal status. He'd been the lecherous thug, holding knives to jeweled throats... leaving only tears and broken families in his wake. But now... now he was something else. He was infamous... wanted in all land's he laid foot upon. For his life, one could get a king's ransom. He was wealthy, morbidly so. His hidden treasuries overflowed with gold and rupees, and the sort of loot one could use for dowry. He held seven accounts between Termina and Hyrule under five different aliases, all men far more than well off. He'd made it, he supposed... He really had. He was a legend in these lands. The noble folk in the higher courts of Hylian Aristocracy considered it bragging rights to have been targeted by he or his partner. He had been hired on three separate occasions to rob a family by that same family. He wasn't one of these poor downtrodden folk. Ironically, in his crusade against the privileged folk of this world... he had become one of them.
Still though, they considered him one of them. Hell, to these people, him and Kadina were practically heroes. Ironic, since all they really were was prime targets. So as he walked through the raving masses, he received a grand welcome, everyone slapped him on the back, or hugged him around the neck. He greeted them all with practiced warmth, falsifying the trust that they assumed he had for them. Yeah right, trust was weakness in this underworld of theirs... nobody who lived long enough to learn that ever forgot it.
He had come not to buy his way into Paradise, though he had more than enough funds to pay the fare of each person here and still live a fairly comfortable life. Hell, if he really wanted to, he could buy the Eternal Return and Idyll. No... no. He was here on business. He had received a letter. A little boy had come up to him with a note, claiming that a pretty gypsy lady had sent it. The note had been simple:
"Meet me at the Carnival, fire boy."
No signature, handwriting deliberately plain. The only possible clue was the dark green ink the writer used. As far as the gypsy lady thing? He had an idea or two who that might be. "I sing the body electric," he muttered, chuckling to himself. His mismatched eyes scanned the crowd before him until they caught a hooded figure, unmoving in contrast to the madness around it. It was a woman, hooded and cloaked, holding some sort of bundle. He walked slowly but steadily toward the woman, shoving his way through the dancing crowd.
It was the 8th Decennial Paradise Carnival. Eighty years ago today, a pirate ship had left port from these very same waters. It sailed along a well known route, but never arrived at its destination. Instead, the crew made landfall in an ancient, abandoned land. This land was littered with the ruins of an ancient civilization. The pirates returned to Termina, and attempted to lead others to this mysterious land, dubbed 'Idyll'. However, they soon discovered that no other ship could travel to this land... and the original pirate ship could travel only between the two. The ship, the Eternal Return, soon became more of a ferry, taking people to and from the mysterious land of Idyll. Over the years, many of the less privileged folk of Hyrule and Termina bought voyage to this paradise, until a teeming settlement formed on the shores of Idyll. It turned to tradition for the Eternal Return to come to Termina every ten years, and take back more settlers. Eventually, these homecomings became a sort of holiday to the downtrodden underground. As it grew and grew in popularity, it became known as the Paradise Carnival... when destitute people would could from all over, offering every rupee they had managed to save in their entire lives, just for a chance at Paradise.
All about the bonfire, the free folk of these lands danced and moved. The instrumental music pounded through the crowds, moving them in mad waves. It was upbeat and nearly deafening, but struck a fire in the loins when heard. It struck some nerve and urged one the grind and move with it. The vocals of a lone songstress penetrated it all. Where the instruments were upbeat, her voice was solemn and mournful, but passionate. As the instruments entranced the body, her ethereal intone resonated within the soul. Her lyrics spoke of a scorned lover, of her sorrow, of her brutal retribution and of how she long for death, her true lover. She was the avatar of these broken people. She was a simulacrum of the beauty, the melancholy, the lust, and of the primal brutality that only the struggle for survival could truly invoke. The masses loved it, and hated what it turned up inside of them. They flowed their heads to the music, they threw their arms and bodies into the air rhythmically, wildly. They screamed, they cried, they sang along.
Performers all around the carnival plied their trades. Pyrokinetics spat plumes of flame into the air, coloring their art with foreign minerals and chemicals. Blue, green, pink, purple, rainbow patterned. The same powders were being thrown randomly into the bonfire, causing it to explode upward into the night with various colors. The writhing crowds were splashed with breathtaking light shows of colored flames. On the beach, a sand-shifting Gerudo pirate was dueling a Zora hydromancer. Spears of hardened sand striking arcs of salty water, all the while, a section of the crowd cheered madly for one side or the other. Jugglers, troupes of dancers, jokers, sword-swallowers, strongmen, any and all sorts of freaks did what they did best. Various cartels were selling countless opiates, aphrodisiacs, and hallucinogens throughout the carnival. Booze seemed more plentiful than the water in the sea itself. It seemed everyone had a bottle, and any level of quality could be found. Fine brandy, pirate grog, and everything in between.
There was no synchronization to their actions, no overall theme. Nothing but freedom controlled them. No laws. No masters. No kings. No gods. They were the forsaken... the unloved. Society shunned their likes, for their heritage, or for their pasts, or even for their lifestyles. But now, it mattered little. Noses would not be turned up on this night. Pirates and poor folk, hacks and whores. Fortune tellers, who couldn't see the future well enough to know that another career choice might have served them better. Traders, whose wares could not be bought in the light of day. It was their time to shine. Not as a diamond would, no, but as the reflection of a cat's eye in shadow. For they were the strays of this world. Hungry, filthy, destitute, homeless... and brutally predatory.
The man that passed through these crowds oft considered himself one of them. After all, he had, for all his life, lurked in the shadows. He'd been a starving child, spit upon by life. He'd been a teen servant, enslaved to a rich family in all but legal status. He'd been the lecherous thug, holding knives to jeweled throats... leaving only tears and broken families in his wake. But now... now he was something else. He was infamous... wanted in all land's he laid foot upon. For his life, one could get a king's ransom. He was wealthy, morbidly so. His hidden treasuries overflowed with gold and rupees, and the sort of loot one could use for dowry. He held seven accounts between Termina and Hyrule under five different aliases, all men far more than well off. He'd made it, he supposed... He really had. He was a legend in these lands. The noble folk in the higher courts of Hylian Aristocracy considered it bragging rights to have been targeted by he or his partner. He had been hired on three separate occasions to rob a family by that same family. He wasn't one of these poor downtrodden folk. Ironically, in his crusade against the privileged folk of this world... he had become one of them.
Still though, they considered him one of them. Hell, to these people, him and Kadina were practically heroes. Ironic, since all they really were was prime targets. So as he walked through the raving masses, he received a grand welcome, everyone slapped him on the back, or hugged him around the neck. He greeted them all with practiced warmth, falsifying the trust that they assumed he had for them. Yeah right, trust was weakness in this underworld of theirs... nobody who lived long enough to learn that ever forgot it.
He had come not to buy his way into Paradise, though he had more than enough funds to pay the fare of each person here and still live a fairly comfortable life. Hell, if he really wanted to, he could buy the Eternal Return and Idyll. No... no. He was here on business. He had received a letter. A little boy had come up to him with a note, claiming that a pretty gypsy lady had sent it. The note had been simple:
"Meet me at the Carnival, fire boy."
No signature, handwriting deliberately plain. The only possible clue was the dark green ink the writer used. As far as the gypsy lady thing? He had an idea or two who that might be. "I sing the body electric," he muttered, chuckling to himself. His mismatched eyes scanned the crowd before him until they caught a hooded figure, unmoving in contrast to the madness around it. It was a woman, hooded and cloaked, holding some sort of bundle. He walked slowly but steadily toward the woman, shoving his way through the dancing crowd.