Quest 07 (Open + Closed)

[newmemorywhodis]

i. Making new, wolfy friends [Open]
In the wild areas near Elysium, Link’s been exploring. It’s a common activity for him. There’s mushrooms and flowers to pick, game to hunt, monsters to fight…

…Then one day, while he’s up in a tree collecting some bird’s eggs, he spots a wolf. A big wolf. A really, really big wolf. It’s as big as a horse.

And once he makes that mental connection, Link immediately thinks, I could ride that.

Which naturally means Link now has to find out if he can. He pulls out a Sneaky Elixir, and swiftly swallows it - demeaning the sounds of his movements. Silently uses his paraglider to move from tree to tree, getting closer. And then carefully drops down behind the massive, monstrous wolf.

He crouches down. Creeps forward. Slowly, slowly. Until he’s right behind the beast, so close he could reach out and touch its fur.

And then he leaps up onto its back, and grabs on.

The wolf yelps and snarls - but Link’s got a good position, and he doesn’t let it twist back and bite him. He just directs the beast to run, and keeps a good hold.

What do you know, he can ride it!


ii. A retrieval of memories [locked to Shu]
Shu had spoken to the Admiral. They’d tracked down the Imperial Commander who’d been given Link’s Purah Pad.

And then they’d sneaked onto the Commander’s warship and completely trashed his quarters.

Well, Link had trashed his quarters. Shu was a bit too dignified for such wanton destruction, but Link wasn’t. And he didn’t regret it either, since in the process, he’d found the Pad!

Now, their getaway was nearly complete. Here in a small alleyway in Elysium, they were far from the scene of the crime. The Crimson Portal wasn’t far off.

But Link had to pause. He hadn’t had a chance yet, but - he had to see. Were all of his pictures still on the Purah Pad? Were they safe?

He pulls out the Pad, and turns it on. And turns to the photo gallery.


iii. Link has a slide show and he’s gonna make you watch it [semi-closed]
Later, Link thinks of all the new people he’d met. People who’d helped him grow plants from home, or who’d shown interest in things from his home. Shu wasn't the only one who he knew would like to see his pictures.

Before, he hadn't had any way of sharing these images of his home. But…now he could.

So Link tracks those people down. Says, “Hi,” when he finds them. And then shoves the Purah Pad - with a picture from Hyrule that would interest them on the screen - right in their face.

[[ooc: this prompt is for Nephenee, Ilphyll, Donnie, Maomao and Atom - but could be open to others if there's a reason for Link to decide to share]]


iv. Wildcard!
[[if you'd like something not on her, contact me!]]

Comments

[newmemorywhodis]

Link nods. Yes, this is where the Puffshrooms and the Muddlebuds grow.

He taps away then - revealing another, third section, which looks to be an image gallery. There's plenty of landscapes, lots of selfies - with an alarming number of them being taken in front of various dangerous looking creatures - and right at the end, several photos of a young Hylian woman with blonde hair braided across her crown.

Link opens none of these images. Instead, he scrolls further back - until he finds an old picture of a dark, mysterious underground landscape.

[purplexing]

That is...a lot of images. Donnie tries to make out what he can of the thumbnails, squinting at the sheer number. It's hard to do so when Link's scrolling through them all, and just as the turtlekin tries lifting his hand to point at the young woman, Link pulls up a completely different picture.

"What...is this place?" he asks, blinking. "...is that blood?" It looks a bit foreboding, whatever the location is.

[newmemorywhodis]

"The Depths," Link says. Donnie's not wrong to find the place foreboding - there was always a eerie, unsettling feeling to the Depths.

But at least the mysterious red substance isn't quite what Donnie fears.

"It's Gloom," Link says. "Like Malice. It saps life."

[purplexing]

"Oogh... That does not look like a friendly place," he has to note. His expression twists with a concerned uncertainty. "Yeaaaah, not sure that that's any better." Probably worse, actually. Blood's gross and unsanitary but it doesn't do that.

"Where is it coming from? It looks...liquid? That doesn't sound natural though, no matter how you spin it."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link nods in agreement - the Gloom most certainly was not natural.

"The Gloom is a dark force," Link says. "Ganondorf summoned it."

[purplexing]

"Not a good guy, I take it," Donnie guesses. "Did it look like something else before?"

[newmemorywhodis]

Link shakes his head. No, Ganondorf was most definitely not a good guy.

But as for Donnie's question, Link wasn't entirely sure what Donnie was referring to - the Gloom, Ganondorf, or the Depths?

"...The Depths?" He asks first, starting with what seems to be the most likely option.

[purplexing]

"Yeah, the Depths," Donnie confirms with a nod. He's not even sure what a Ganondorf is supposed to look like anyway.

[newmemorywhodis]

Ah. It was that likely option.

"Don't know what it was like before," he says. "Depths only opened up with the Upheaval. But the Gloom's gone now."

With the destruction of the Demon Dragon, all of the Gloom had disappeared like dust.

[purplexing]

"That's probably a good thing at least. So... a little less foreboding with the lack of questionably red substances spreading along the ground."

Donnie has no idea where Upheavals and Ganondorfs figure into everything, but it clearly says that Link's been through a lot back in his world. As if his magical bag's contents don't already hint that.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link nods. Yes, it was definitely much less foreboding. And deadly.

Then Link pauses, and asks: "...Want more pictures?"

And which ones? Does Donnie want to see more of the Depths? More Zonai builds? More rockets?

[purplexing]

"Oh yes please," the turtlekin says readily, straightening up where he sits. He's not going to be particularly picky because everything will be New, but maybe Link knows him well enough by now to figure what might interest him.

[newmemorywhodis]

Well, since Donnie didn't specify - and they're already in the image gallery - Link decides to just flick through some of the pictures.

Now, Donnie can see some of those pictures Link zoomed through earlier. The landscapes, the monsters, the excessive number of selfies. There's also quite a few contraptions, all of which look to be oddly cobbled-together looking things held together by a strange green glue.

And there's a few of other people, too. Like that young woman with the blonde hair in a braided crown.

[purplexing]

It's so fascinating, even though Donnie knows he hasn't even seen a whole lot of the places of his own world, but there's something to knowing that these are images from elsewhere. The most of any monsters he's seen are those they'd hunted in the seas, so he gapes at the ones that Link's come across. There's so many... What sort of place does Link live in?

He has so many questions about the things that look like they're just stuck together. What is that supposed to be? How is that even possible? What function could that even have?

"Who's that?" he asks when the picture of the young woman comes up.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link pauses. Looks at the picture.

It's one of the ones taken after the defeat of the Demon Dragon. When Zelda had first returned to the school at Hateno. She'd been swarmed by the children, and the pictures they'd drawn of her - pictures on which they'd wrote about how much they missed her.

In the picture she stands in front of the wall with the pictures. Her eyes are misty, and she's near tears - but she is smiling.

"...Princess Zelda," Link says softly.

[purplexing]

A princess? A title, he guesses. He's not very brushed up on titles, or the hierarchies they belong to outside of the ones more commonly held by nobles. But it seems this is someone important. Donnie's not all that great about reading people, but there's just something in the way Link says her name that makes it seem that way.

Zelda's expression is almost contradictory, but she seems happy despite looking like she's about to cry. "Did something happen?" he asks, head tilting as he tries to puzzle out whatever might have been happening in this picture.

[newmemorywhodis]

There's a long, silent pause from Link.

"...She was gone a while," he says. "The children missed her. She was happy to see them."

She'd been so touched by their pictures. By their drawings, the little notes about how much they wanted her to come back. They'd been happy tears.

[purplexing]

"Oh..."

Putting it in that perspective certainly helps Donnie understand it a lot more. Sort of. It didn't quite explain the tears, at least not to Donnie, who associated such with more negative emotions. But maybe it's because she'd missed them too?

Would his brothers cry for him if he ever saw them again? Maybe Mikey, he was always the most open with emotions.

[newmemorywhodis]

For a moment Link just lets the silence hang. As Donnie thinks of his own family, and Link looks at the picture of Zelda. But eventually, he does break it.

"She'd like you," he says. "She loves research. And experiments."

Didn't matter if it was science, or history, or anything else. Zelda liked figuring things out, learning things.

[purplexing]

"Yeah?" Donnie smiles a little at that. Such things only appeal to certain people, he supposes. It's nice to know even in other worlds there might be kindred spirits of a sort.

"Are you two close?" At a glance he could almost think them related, this Princess Zelda and Link. Or maybe that's just the common traits of their people. But it's clear Link respects her at the very least.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link hums. It's a sort of half non-committal, half-assent kind of noise.

Really, everyone that knew them well knew they were close. But outside of a close circle of friends, their exact relationship with each other was one they preferred to keep private.

Maybe because they'd been under so much public scrutiny when they were younger. So much of the focus and attention of the royal court had been on them. Why invite more of that, if it wasn't necessary?

[purplexing]

The closest relationships Donnie's ever had have been with family. Aside from the basic distastefulness of his experiences with the nobility here, he otherwise has no idea about all these complications that people bring into such matters when it comes to different sorts of relationships.

With a shrug, he looks back at the picture again.

"Have I ever asked what all it was you did, back where you're from? Like...I don't know, job, I guess? Super-collector?" He's only half-joking about the last. Some kind of fighter, definitely.

[newmemorywhodis]

"Knight," Link says. Although super-collector sounds fun. He wouldn't mind being one of those...

[purplexing]

Link already seems to unofficially be a super-collector, anyway...

"Oh, neat. That's like...the warriors directly serving royalty, was it?" Donnie grins. "No wonder you're good at fighting. And protecting." Given he's had firsthand experience.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link hums again; this time more definitively in affirmation. Yes, he serves royalty. Yes, he's good at fighting and protecting.

He doesn't bother to add to that; to say that he's the Hylian Champion or the Hero of Hyrule. He'd much rather not mention it at all.

And maybe with that information, Donnie will be able to figure out that 'Princess' must be a royal title.