03: In Like A Lion

[theriflespiral]

01: Pancake Week (Elysium)
Much as she despises the Orthodox Church, there was one tradition, Natalia thinks, with which she can truck, and that is the week before Lent being Pancake Week.

She has a small Ether stove and a little chalk sign: IT'S PANCAKE WEEK! Deliver a pancake! Ask me how!, with a small list of fillings, and a drawing of a penguin carrying a pancake wrapped around little herrings and a pleased expression.

Although, the ability to deliver a pancake, still warm, without breaking it, is a hell of a statement for a shipping company to make...


02: To Dance As The Queen Does
Once more, Natalia listens to distantly piped jazz and taps the rhythm carefully, gathering Ether, ice swirling in her hands as she moves to the beat.

And, once again, as her mind fills with other things, the spell breaks, sending little bits of powder snow all across the improvised dance floor, to evaporate.

She hums in annoyance. Of course, by now, surely someone would hear soft or hard jazz and come to investigate.


03: Unfurling Inner Lotus
While much of her time is given to maintaining her front or honing her marksmanship and spellcraft, time must be given to conditioning her body.

This is risky, because unlike the other forms of training, to do it she must engage her energies at their fullest. This is less a risk of her being hurt-- no more than usual-- but rather a risk of discovery; for no one notices a girl with black hair and black eyes, but a girl with blue stars shining in her eyes? Now that has been seen once or twice, to say nothing about how it might touch on the senses of those sensitive to Ether.

But it's the only way to make sure she's training to her utmost, and so utmost she must go-- keeping up with others, never mind the Empire, demands it.

Thus it is that someone as apparently light as Natalia Koutolika is now lifting sacks of shot that are obviously as heavy as she is, and tossing them some distance, besides.


04: Special Deliveries

This was the spot. Natalia stood on the deck of the Humboldt in the little shelter the rocks of the island made, and waited to make contact.

As much as she wanted to recover and utilize larger ships, even ships that might be better suited to the line (intentionally), ships like the little sea sloop were too useful for Penguin Logistics' other purpose: smuggling packages, people, and information.

Was her chronometer wrong? She kept a weather eye out. Who is meeting her? And for what?

Comments

[testygirl]

"Yeah."

Aira snaps herself out of her own funk, and she steps up behind Nat to affectionately cuff her shoulder again.

"You just have to ask! You know that, right?"

[theriflespiral]

"I know. I just... I don't know where I would begin. Or. What I would be like if it were removed from me." She looks at her hands. "Will I be recognizable as myself without it?"

[newmemorywhodis]

"...You'd still be you," Link says. "Even if you change."

Link knows this, from personal experience. He's never had a frozen heart - but he did lose all of his memories. He'd had the same thoughts, the same worries.

And as he'd regained fragments of his memories, when he'd been able to talk to Zelda...he'd learned that he had changed. Significantly. He wasn't the same as he'd been, before the Calamity.

But he wasn't a completely different person either. He wasn't unrecognisable.

[testygirl]

Aira gives her shoulder a warm squeeze this time.

"Of course you would. But, I mean, I get why you're conflicted."

Aira has changed a lot about herself over the past several months—before she arrived in Esthere, and after. There's no denying that the effort has made her a much better person.

"... Change can definitely be a good thing. Trust me."

[theriflespiral]

"I..." She pauses, shakes her head. Looks to each of them in turn as she speaks, reaches a hand out. "Thank you. Both of you. I... Truly, do not know where to begin with untangling it, or I would tell you where to start. I've made some progress by looking at stuff in the Vault on curses, but... Those are all directed towards others applying maledictions to you. And... If there's one thing I am sure of now, it's--

"I did this to myself, somehow."

[newmemorywhodis]

"...You don't remember?"

Had Natalia also lost her memories?

[testygirl]

Aira really isn't sure what she means, despite hanging on her words. Idly, she's shifted to giving Nat's shoulders a little massage. Hopefully that isn't too distracting, but it functions vaguely as a wordless "you're welcome."

But yes, she's as curious as Link is, and so waits quietly for Nat to answer.

[theriflespiral]

Natalia closed her eyes. Breathed. How many times has she spoken these words now? Too many. Not nearly enough. "It's not that I don't remember. I remember the moment, all too clearly, but... Do you remember exactly what you did, the last time you were so lost in anger and grief that all you wanted was to do anything to stop the pain?"

Her eyes don't focus in the here and now. "In that way, I... Did something. And when next I woke, my heart was ice."

[newmemorywhodis]

The last time Link was lost in anger and grief? Well, he spent who knows how long riding around on the Light Dragon's forehead, sobbing into the fur on her forehead. Then when he couldn't stand to do that anymore, he went and fought every single lynel he knew about. Then waited for the next blood moon, and did it all over again.

But that was...not exactly what Natalia did.

"...You cursed you," Link says slowly. Thinking about what exactly that must mean.