#originally wanted to have ghirahim in the sword but it didn't work out so i scrapped it

[theribbajack]

“Do not look away; you witness a King’s revival.”

My man is back and fresher than ever. A somewhat unsuccessful attempt at replicating the painterly style of the official artwork, but I wanted to get one more out before launch day. The hype is real!!

[crazylittlejester]

I have been extremely scatterbrained today, so I didn't make as much progress as I wanted, but I did get the first small portion of Fi's origin story in LU EAH AU written.

The main issue I'm having is with the way the plot is working out, Fi has a vibrant personality prior to her sacrifice, and I'm not sure how exactly to approach that because from what I've heard, she's very emotionless in Skyward Sword. I'm trying to use that to my advantage by having her personality be erased on account of her soul being wiped clean as a part of the sacrificial process, but I feel like I'm reverse engineering something here.

As a side note, I'm leaning into the aesthetic of the mythological stories I've read and studied with some of this. Fi's actual birth takes place before this, but she's pretty much born the same way that Aphrodite was, except in Fi's case she comes from a mountain spring instead of the ocean.

Similarly, Ghirahim is spawned around the same time from a volcanic eruption, making them roughly the same age. Technically, they're not siblings, but they have very strong sibling energy.

Another side note, I'm not completely sure how to justify Demise's existence, but I'm toying with the idea that he's either Hylia's brother or spawned into existence because the world couldn't handle the imbalance caused by Hylia's existence without any checks and balances.

As for why he's referred to as "the Jabberwocky," I don't have a good reason for that, except that it sticks to the theme. I'm really just trying to give Hylia and Demise's story the same aesthetic as a fairy tale or mythological story to try and make it blend in with the setting because I don't know what to do with it and this version of Fi is now living in my head rent-free so obviously I have to write it.

Anyway, here's the ~225 words I finished before I got a headache.

Hylia could do many things, but making a soul out of nothing was not one of them. And, unfortunately for her, a soul was exactly what she needed to create the Vorpal Sword. The one thing that could stop the Jabberwocky, either by outright slaying it, or sealing it away between the pages of the world where it would never be able to harm another person. The problem was finding a suitable soul or substitute for one, because there was a stark difference between the properties bestowed upon the souls of mortals and the essence that deities were made of. She herself was very powerful, albeit significantly less potent than Din, Farore, and Nayru were since she was their child in the strange sort of way that divine creation formed secondary deities. But she couldn't very well ask The Golden Goddesses to sacrifice one of themselves, for that would throw the entire world's balance into chaos. Each one was equally valuable to maintaining the precious equilibrium that kept the world in order, even if Nayru was the patron goddess of order and the one whose power was behind the natural laws of the universe. No, she either had to use the soul of a spirit or find enough mortal souls that they would be strong enough together to contain the sort of power that she needed to give Link.

every single time i see an ask from you I get so excited that I finish up everything I’m working on, grab my dog, and go get comfy and cozy somewhere and ask everyone near me to shut up so I can focus because these make my day and i take it very seriously 👁️👁️

MOUNTAIN SPRING AND VOLCANIC ERUPTION!!! I LOVE IT.

OUGH HYLIA’S BROTHER WOULD BE INSANE /pos

THANK YOU FOR THE LITTLE SNIPPET I LOVED IT DUDE YOU’RE COOKING AND IM SO OBSESSED. I LOVE THIS SO MUCH I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE MORE!!!!!

[sadnessisavegetable]

Mutual Understanding

"Well if your weight hadn't yanked my prosthetic off, you wouldn't have been thrown like that! You know I can tell when you do stuff on purpose, Ghirahim!" Bear scolded.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't have lost your arm!" Ghirahim shouted.

Bear turned back with a speed and fury Ghirahim had never seen out of him before. Ghirahim flinched back.

"It wasn't my choice." Bear spoke quietly.

"I'm sorry, I-I shouldn't have said that. I know that I shouldn't have said that. Please, please don't hurt me." Ghirahim begged, backing away slowly as his arms trembled.

Bear didn't move.

Ghirahim stared back at him with fear and trauma flashing through his eyes, reliving some of his worst memories.

And Bear stood still.

Bear softening the expression on his face to be open and understanding, getting down to his knees, making sure that his hands were empty. He was making himself small, less threatening. It was a difficult feat despite Bear's diminutive stature, because Bear had been hardened by the world around him and worked as a mercenary assassin.

Ghirahim eventually collapsed to his own knees, tears starting to form in those dark, dark eyes. Ghirahim, the Spirit of the Demon Sword, forged by Demise Himself on Death Mountain when the world was new, was fragile from past scars.

And they knew it deep in their souls.

Bear had gone through trauma in a similar way, but there were gaps in his memory, blots on his mind to stop his own understanding of what he had endured. Bear was...an abomination by the standards of most cultures in Hyrule, he had blood of Termina, of the Ikaan people. But he also had Twili blood and some amounts of Gerudo-Hylian while being a man who was once a woman. And that made him low enough to be a slave in some peoples' eyes.

Bear was missing limbs from being abused physically and sexually.

Ghirahim had the memories of something similar that he relived every time someone moved wrong.

Bear started to sing, the low Twilit language rumbling through his small body. He sang a lullaby about healing, the song originally from Termina, and the words wove a spell that rested on Ghirahim like a warm blanket. Ghirahim started to calm down and come back to reality.

"I won't touch you unless you direct me to, Ghirahim." Bear told his sword so gently. Ghirahim almost cried harder, out of relief, at the understanding of how love should be, at the simple declaration of respect.

"You can touch me, hold me if you want. As long as you don't touch skin on anything except my hands and maybe my face." Ghirahim gave the permission and Bear approached on his knees, never making himself bigger. He couldn't risk frightening Ghirahim again.

"I only want to gently hold your hands and tell you it is alright. We will work this through slowly, you and I together. I need to heal too." Bear reassured Ghirahim while he held his hands reverently, his light eyes captivated by Ghirahim's feelings genuinely showing, plain and easy to see as the day.

Ghirahim could see the heat pits that Bear used mainly for hunting and the gently glowing Ikaan sunspots that were working away to make energy for Bear, and he could see just how focused Bear's eyes actually looked compared to the other Twili people he'd seen. Bear's natural features mingled in such a way that he was an oddity, but he was still so beautiful.

Bear could now see the cracks that enveloped parts of Ghirahim, all filled in a shade of bronze with white lacing through. He could see the uncertainty held in the quiver of Ghirahim's brow, and the subtle reminders that he and Fi were alike but so very different. His form, crafted expertly by a god of madness and destruction, made to hold him...was ruined by Ghirahim's own missing self-esteem.

"You're beautiful." Bear murmured to Ghirahim finally as he made eye contact with the sword spirit. "Beautiful and tragic, and I would never had the gall to harm that."

Ghirahim almost smiled at that. Bear was doing his best to be kind when he usually didn't need to.

"You're beautiful too. You are so perfectly chaotic in form, yet so peaceful in that chaos. It's inspiring and I would not hurt you either because you are different from everyone I've ever been touched by or used by." Ghirahim whispered, his voice so quiet, as though he was trying to stop the gods from hearing him.

Bear did smile at that, sharp fangs with slight serration peering from behind his lips as he did. This smile wasn't menacing or cruel or even a threat.

This smile was one of trust and adoration.

Bear never showed his teeth in their natural state to anyone, he typically wore a glamour to hide just how sharp they were because of the response he would usually get from people.

But he trusted Ghirahim. And Ghirahim trusted Bear.

So Bear smiled openly. And Ghirahim thought about showing him his truest form.

"Don't freak out. But...this is the form I take to...y'know, be a little vain. But I want to show you my true form." Ghirahim told Bear softly, hesitantly.

"You don't have to, if you don't want to. All in good time, as I tend to say. I just hate using magic energy, it makes me exhausted, and I give less of a shit about showing teeth." Bear shrugged, gently pushing Ghirahim's hair back to see his other eye.

Ghirahim smiled and nodded.