#the divine beasts are gone and the story is going out of its way to avoid mentioning them or their pilots.

[bitchfitch]

MOTHER FUCKER SPOTTED T POSING. GAY SHIT IM GOING TO HAVE TO BANISH THE CHILD FOR TO ENSUE.

[cevansbrat0007]

Risky Business

Summary: Full Story! Ari doesn't like it when you take unnecessary risks. So tonight he's going to teach you a lesson you won't soon forget.

Warnings: Mature Themes, Ari Being A Menace, Smut, Brat!Reader, Punishments, Use of Restraints/Handcuffs, CMNF (Clothed Male Nude Female), Discussions of Safe Words, Light Degradation, Spanking (mentioned), Ass Slapping, Manhandling, Thigh Riding, Light Choking, Orgasm Denial, Cursing, Minors DNI.

A/N: Part of my Sweet Renegades Series. Semi-proofread, not beta'd. All mistakes are my own. Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!

You stare at yourself in the bathroom mirror as you finish knotting the tie on your pink silk robe. Ari’s instructions about what he wanted you to wear had been very clear. And since he’d left your house in a rather sour mood, the last thing you wanted to do was disappoint him. 

Your teeth go to worry your bottom lip as you pick up your phone to reread your text exchange from earlier in the day.

You could only hope that he had gone on to have a good day. Otherwise you had the feeling you’d be in for one hell of a lecture whatever he time he made it back to your place. With a sigh you turn off the light and decide to make your way downstairs. 

As much as you try not to, you find yourself replaying the events from this morning over and over again in your mind. Perhaps wishing that things could have gone down just a little differently. 

Six Hours Earlier…

You knew you’d fucked up the moment you heard the slam of the car door. Freezing in place, you’d dared to look down, not the least bit surprised to see your boyfriend damn near sprinting across your lawn in the direction of your house.

“Hey, Beast! Be right there–oops!” You’d gone to give a little wave, only to let out a tiny screech when you’d nearly lost your footing. Which had only made you man move faster.

“Bird – hold on! Don’t move!” He bellowed as before skidding to a stop just at the base of the ladder propped against the side of your home. “Fuck!” 

“I’m okay!” You’d quickly tried to reassure him. “But I think my roof is missing a tile. Couldn’t quite tell by looking at it from there.” You’d vaguely gestured towards the ladder that Ari was clutching as if his life depended upon it. “So I figured I’d just come up to see whatever there was to see.”

“Right. But…” Ari’s fingers had gone to pinch the bridge of his nose as he worked to calm his breathing. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re up there.” His heart had seized in his chest as he watched you wobble for the second time in almost as many minutes. “C’mon and crawl back to me, sweet Bird. I’ll hold this steady, you just focus on not falling.”

‘Please.’ He’d sent a quick prayer up to his Lord in heaven. Just in case he’d found himself in need of a little divine intervention if things went south. 

“Uhh…” Slowly, you’d begun making your way over to the edge of the roof. Your pulse has kicked up when it finally dawned on you just how high off the ground you really were. “I think I might be a little stuck.” A nervous giggle bubbled its way out of your chest as you continued to creep along the slightly sloped surface. 

Ari had cleared his throat, wiping his increasingly damp palms on his jeans. “You’re not stuck, sweetheart. We’re gonna get you down the same way you got up there, okay? Just keep coming towards me.”

“And if–if I fall?” He just seemed so confident. Which let you know that you really should’ve thought this through a little better. Perhaps this was what you deserved for being so impatient.   

“Then I’ll just have to catch you then, won’t I?” Fat chance of that one happening.

“Or I’ll probably just end up crushing you.” You’d muttered aloud to no one in particular as you began to maneuver yourself backwards onto the ladder. 

“What was that, sweetheart?” Ari had squinted up at you, silently pleading with you to start making your descent.  

“Uh, nothing.” Sweat dotted your brow as you reached out your leg, your foot dangling awkwardly until it found the closest rung. “I–I think I’ve got it. I’m gonna come down now, okay?”

“That’s my brave girl.” He’d hummed encouragingly. “Careful. You’re so close. Just keep putting one foot after the other. Yep, just like that.”   

A minute later, you’d felt him grab hold of your shorts, effectively holding you steady until you’re firmly planted on the ground once more. And then you were in his arms, his nose buried in your curls while one of his large, warm hands gently caressed your back.

“You have impeccable timing.” You’d whispered shakily, your words coming out muffled as you snuggle deeper into his embrace. 

“I have what?” He pulled away from you, his hands moving to grip your biceps. “Better yet, what the fuck were you doing up there?” You could sense that your Bounty Hunter is doing his best to sound calm.

“Um…I was trying to clean my gutters.” You’d responded, confused as to why Ari seemed so angry.

“Coulda’ sworn I told you I’d take care of it.” He growled, his blue eyes darkening dangerously. “And that I didn’t want your ass anywhere near a ladder, let alone the goddamned roof.” 

“But that was like…” You’d trailed off, trying to recall when exactly your bounty hunter had made that promise.

“It’s barely been two days.” He’d hissed. “Just what the hell is wrong with you that you can’t wait more than two fucking days?”

“Nothing. I just-” You’d sniffed, not caring for the tone he was using. “What made you decide to drop by?”

“Left a couple files on your kitchen table. I need to pass ‘em on to the Sheriff, see if he’s got anything else that might be useful regarding Martin’s sister.” He continued to glare down at you, his ticking in annoyance. “But what do I find when I get here? You risking your life because you don’t know how to sit your pretty ass down for more than five seconds. Jesus fucking Christ!”

Ari must’ve known he needed a minute, because he’d turned away from you to make a beeline for the front of your house. Of course you’d been right on his heels, wincing as he shouldered his way through your unlocked door. 

“Are you mad at me or something?” You’d asked, frowning at the sound of his derisive snort.

“Or something.” He’d muttered as he scooped up the folders he’d left behind in the kitchen. You watched him drag his fingers through his hair before quickly sifting through each file to check the contents.

“I promise I’m okay.” You’d said, clasping your hands and resting them on your stomach.

“Don’t have time for this.” He’d mumbled, his eyes lighting up when he landed on the document he was searching for. “Found it.” Satisfied that everything was in order, he’d made his way back over to you.  

“Bird.” He’d rumbled, grabbing the front of your shirt to haul you close. “I’ll deal with you later. You can count on that. Now I gotta go. Please don’t make me regret leaving you here alone. And don’t do anything else dumb while I’m gone.” 

With that he’d pressed a hard kiss to your mouth and jogged back out the way he came. Leaving you by yourself to spend the rest of the afternoon replaying the day’s events while you waited for him to return.

You perk up when you hear the front door open and shut, signaling that Ari had returned. Hopefully in a much better mood than the one he’d been in when he left. If you were lucky, that is.

“Welcome back, honey.” You breathe as a fresh wave of nervous energy hits you the moment he enters the room. “I took the liberty of ordering us some dinner from Holtman’s Diner. I, uh, remembered how much you said you liked their chicken pot pies.”

“Already ate.” His gruff response has you mentally kicking yourself all over again. 

“Oh. Well.” You turn to stare at the bag of food resting on the counter. “That’s not a problem. I’m sure it’ll keep just fine in the fridge until you decide you’re ready for it.” Offering him your sweetest smile, you hustle to put everything away. 

But he doesn’t return it. Instead he continues to glower at you, his piercing blue gaze following your every movement. And the silence is so uncomfortable it’s almost enough to make you want to scream. 

“There we go.” You chirp with a cheeriness you most definitely did not feel. “How did everything go with Sheriff Mitt? Was he able to give you anything on Martin’s sister or –”

“Did I ask you to touch the ladder?” His quietly snarled question takes you by surprise. 

“I mean…” You trail off, wincing at the uncertainty in your tone. Why did you get the feeling that you might’ve just fucked up again? “It’s not like you didn’t tell me to…not…touch it.” You shrug, instantly regretting how you’d chosen to structure that sentence. “In fact, I believe all you told me to do was keep my feet on the ground. Which I did the entire time I drug it back inside my garage.” 

You move to fish a glass out of a nearby cabinet. “Now, can I at least get you something to drink, baby? Pretty sure I’ve still got some of that whiskey you like.” You knew for a fact that you did. But only because you’d already checked.

“Afraid I’m not really the type to drink before handling business of this nature.” Your mouth suddenly goes dry when you notice the way his eyes darken as he lazily peruses your silkenly clad form.  

Heaving a small sigh you go about replacing the glass. “And exactly what kinda business are we handling here, Beast?” You ask, protectively wrapping your arms around your middle.

“The kind that occurs when a man needs to make a few things clear to his woman.” He gives a rueful shake of his head before running his hand through his chestnut locks. “Especially when she seems to possess more will than good sense on almost any given day.”

You wait for him to smile or wink, or do anything to indicate that he’s only joking. But it never comes. And while his cheeky remark chafes, albeit just a little, you decide to grit your teeth and let it slide. For now. 

So, instead you allow your hands to go to your hips before you force yourself to take a deep breath. Ari takes a step towards you then, the sound of his work boots is surprisingly quiet as he prowls closer to where you’re standing. Now ordinarily, this would be the part where you backed up so that you could put some distance between yourself and the surly bounty hunter.

But unfortunately, you just couldn’t seem to get your worthless jelly legs to move.  

Your man doesn’t stop until he’s directly in front of you – so close that you catch a whiff of his aftershave. The one you’d bought just for him. But that wasn’t the only thing you smelled. There was also a hint of something else.

Tobacco and cedar.

“You’ve been smoking again.” It’s a statement, not a question. 

“One. Maybe two.” Ari concedes, sucking on his teeth. “If anything, it was more of a stress smoke. Found it pretty hard to enjoy a single puff when all I saw when I closed my fucking eyes is you taking a tumble off that goddamned roof.”

“Dress it up however you want.” You sniff haughtily, your eyes rolling heavenwards. “It’s still a filthy habit, Ari Levinson. One that’s all but guaranteed to send you to an early grave.”     

Later, you would come to the conclusion that you must’ve struck a nerve. Because the next thing you know, one of Ari’s big hands is fisting its way into your curls, yanking your head back with just enough force to get your attention.

And turn you on at the same time.

“You’ve got alotta fuckin’ nerve, baby.” Against his better judgment, he slants his mouth over yours in a hard, unexpected kiss. “I’m sure you’re anxious for me to sort your shit out, but I promise tonight is gonna go a whole lot different if I catch you even thinking about rolling those pretty eyes at me again. One. More. Time.” The rough edge in his tone has you wanting to rub up against him in the best way possible. 

“Cat got your tongue?” Ari purrs when you choose to continue glaring at him instead of responding. “Or maybe…” He leans down to brush his soft, sensual lips over yours once more – albeit gently this time. “Maybe you think I’m bluffing. Is that it, little Bird?”

“N–no.” You stammer, your pulse flaring to life when his free hand comes out of nowhere to grab your ass hard enough to have you rising on your toes. 

“You sure?” He asks, sounding rather skeptical. “Because I’m more than willing to table this conversation if you think a quick trip over my knee might help you with that eye contact.”  

“I–I’m sure. Thanks.” You mumble, uncomfortable with the way your pussy flutters at the prospect of receiving a spanking from the burly man in front of you. 

Maybe you’d try your luck another time. Just to test it. See if he’d really be the type to follow through. But the real question was, just how disappointed would you be if he didn’t? Perhaps those kinds of scenarios were best left for the heroines in that stack of romance novels you kept hidden in the back of your bookcase. 

“Well, if you change your mind, you just be sure to let me know.” 

Flustered, all you can manage is a jerky nod once he finally releases you. All you can focus on is the erratic thrum of your pulse as you struggle to get your bearings. 

“I see it looks like you followed the directions I sent over earlier.” Ari muses, his nimble fingers brushing along the belt of your robe. “You’d better be naked and ready for me, sweetheart. Otherwise that spanking we just talked about is gonna be back on the table.” He grins at you, which is really more like a flash of teeth than anything else. 

“I am.” Comes your low, breathy response as your traitorous nipples pebble beneath the thin material of your lingerie. Wanting to please him, you decide to part the edges of your robe, giving him a glimpse of your calculated submission. 

“Good girl.” That’s all you hear before he gently takes hold of your arm and begins to lead you out of the kitchen. “Guess that proves you can listen if you think the stakes are high enough.” His lopsided smirk has you confused. “But tonight I’m gonna make sure you hear me.

“But wh–ooh!” Your poorly timed question ends in a squeal when he delivers a sharp blow to your ass. 

“Duchess.” Ari growls, his head dipping so that his lips dance along the shell of your ear. “I don’t wanna hear another fucking sound out of that sweet mouth unless it’s you choking on my cock. You with me?”

Stunned into silence, all you can do is nod. But thankfully it’s enough. This time when he lets you go, you scamper off into the safety of the living room without looking back. You find yourself grimacing as you attempt to rub the sting out of your butt. You’d do well to remember that your man had a hand like a flippin’ oak tree.

Ten Minutes Later…

By the time Ari decides to join you in the living room you’re feeling beyond antsy. You gave up on sitting on the couch, preferring to hang out in the middle of the room. You perk up when he finally strolls in, only to wilt once you spy what he has clutched in his fist. They looked suspiciously like…

Handcuffs. 

Ari pauses by the doorway, allowing his hip to rest against the frame. He studies you, cocking his head to the side as reads the question written all over your face. 

“Go on and ask, baby. I know how much it’s killing you to hold it in.”

“And who are those for?” The words come tumbling out seconds after you receive permission.

“You.” He shrugs, holding the burgundy leather cuffs up to give you a better look at them. 

“Why?” Your hands fly to your hips as a fresh wave of defiance courses through your veins. “Because you found me on the roof earlier? Cuz’ I’ve gotta tell you, Beast, this is honestly starting to sound like some serious macho bullshit.” 

“Is that right?” He quirks a tawny brow as he waits for you to continue.

“Yep. I–I’m all for playing, but I honestly don’t see how I did anything wrong. In fact, I bet if I was a man you wouldn’t have had a problem with me inspecting my own roof.” Your eyes narrow as you jab a finger in his direction.

“Bird.” Your nickname comes on the heels of an impatient groan. “No offense, but if you were a man, you wouldn’t be in my bed. Just a statement of fact.”

“I just meant –” You start, only for him to cut you off.

“I know what you meant. And that was my answer.” He scrubs a weary hand over his bearded jaw. “But I also know you, baby. I know you're all riled up and ready to argue with me. So gimme what else you got, so we can go about getting you straightened out good and proper.” His dark tone is full of promise, making you shiver.

Fine. If that’s how he wanted to play this, then so be it. You had no problem calling out this kind of crap when you saw it.  

“Alright. But only because you asked.” You cross your arms over your chest as you raise your chin, meeting Ari’s stern gaze with an equally perturbed one of your own. “This is my house. That’s my roof, and those are my gutters. I’m responsible for their upkeep, otherwise I might not have a place to live.” 

You’re surprised to see him nod, almost as if he was agreeing with you. So you keep going, assuming you’re making at least some headway with this man.

“I would also like to point out that there are millions of women whose job it is everyday to–to climb ladders and patch roofs, they clean gutters. And, hell! Some of those women might even be the ones building the houses, and you’re upset with me for inspecting my own property?” You throw your arms up in the air for good measure. “Make it make sense!” 

“You done, baby?” He keeps his tone light, bordering on casual. 

“I…” And here you’d thought you were making some headway. “Yes, I’m done.” 

“Alright.” Ari slowly peels himself off the wall to stand at his height. “Now turn around and put your hands behind your back for me.” You immediately balk at that, although he’s quick to shush you. “Duchess, I let you speak your piece. And I am gonna respond, but tonight is all about making sure you hear me.” 

“You can’t–”

“Sweetheart.” He gives an amused shake of his head as he playfully twirls the cuffs around his index finger. “Tonight ain’t the night to try and tell me what I can and can’t do with you. From the moment I met you, I knew you needed a keeper. You just don’t know how to let yourself be kept. Something I aim to fix.” 

You feel your core spasm when he begins to advance, your empty walls clenching around nothing. It only gets worse when you notice the smug grin that flits across his handsome features once he stops in front of you, the tops of his boots nearly brushing your bare toes. 

“And lucky for you,” his hand cups your jaw, his thumb lightly stroking along the curve of your bottom lip. “I’m not afraid to get creative when it comes to dealing with stubborn little birds. Now turn the fuck around before I decide I’m better off bending you over the arm of that couch and teaching you a different lesson entirely.” 

Licking your dry lips, you finally do as you’re asked and turn away from him. You honestly weren’t sure if you could handle something like that tonight. Even though the simple threat alone was enough to have your slick practically dripping down your thighs. 

“Well, would ya look at that? Guess my pretty girl is still in the mood to listen.” The slightly mocking edge to his voice has you feeling just a touch unsteady. A soft gasp escapes when Ari reaches around to untie the front of your silken wrap as his mouth hovers just above your pulse. “Let’s see if you can keep it up.”

You shudder at the feel of his warm breath dancing along your skin, the heady thrum of anticipation causing you to break out in gooseflesh as you await his next instruction. 

“Take off the robe, Duchess.” Your eyes flutter closed even as sharp teeth nip at your throat. “Show me you understand that you’re not in charge right now, even if you haven’t fully grasped it yet.”

Gathering your courage, you allow the garment to slide down your body until it pools to the floor at your feet, leaving you naked and vulnerable.

“Hands next, please. There we go.” You hold still while Ari gently binds your wrists with the soft leather cuffs. “You’re doing so good for me. You really are.” He slowly tightens them, paying special attention to your body’s responses in case anything is too much.

“Are you wet for me, sweetheart? Huh?” He gives into the temptation to pinch your nipple, making you whimper. It’s a sound that goes straight to his cock. “Aww, it’s okay if you don’t wanna answer. You don’t have to.” A possessive hand moves to cup your drenched pussy at the same time as a deep purr rumbles in his chest. “I’m more than happy to see for myself.”  

You remain silent, content to focus on the erratic hum of your pulse crashing in your ears. However, it’s the next instruction that throws you for a loop. Simply because it’s not one you’re expecting. 

“I’m gonna need you to pick a safe word. One that you’re gonna remember to use if something we do – whatever we do – becomes too much. Now, for obvious reasons, it can’t be a word like “no” or “stop”. It needs to be something like –”

“Peppermint.” You whisper, catching yourself by surprise.

“Alright. Peppermint it is.” Ari agrees after briefly mulling it over. He drops a quick kiss on your shoulder before pulling away in favor of taking a seat on the couch, leaving you standing in the middle of the room.

Alone.

“Come here.” The command stirs something within you. Something that made you want to stop fighting and obey. “Come to me, Bird.”

So you do.

You don’t stop until you’re standing between his spread legs. Meanwhile, Ari makes a show of lounging on the sofa, his big body giving the appearance of being relaxed. But you knew better. 

This man was still every inch the predator. And right now he was in charge. A fact that you would do well to remember before it went and bit you in the ass.    

“Sit.” 

You move to crawl onto his lap, only to stop when he shakes his head “no”. You’re confused until he pats his thigh, letting you know what he really wants from you. Biting your lip you sink down you’re straddling his thickly muscled thigh, your bare pussy pressing flush against the coarse fabric of his jeans. 

Pleased with your submission thus far, Ari’s hands go rest on your hips so that he can gently knead and massage your curves.           

“But I don’t understand!” You whine when he pulls away after you lean in for a kiss. 

There was no way you could know just how hard it was for him to deny you like that. How much it hurt to tell you no, especially when you were pouting like you were now. But what good would it do to give you a reward when you hadn’t earned it? 

“Are you in charge right now?” He can tell his unexpected harshness startles you when he notices the way your bottom lip begins to quiver. Too bad he’s having none of it. “Aw, don’t you dare give me those crocodile tears, baby. Not when we’re only just getting started.” He gifts you with a loving smack to your ass. “Tonight you’re gonna have to earn my cock. And you can start by making yourself cum.” 

“Huh?” Your eyes go wide as your brain works overtime to process what he’s saying. You find it even harder to concentrate when one of his fingers begins tracing along the curve of your nipple.

“I see you’re still not hearing me.” His lightly calloused palms return to your hips so that he can begin slowly guiding you up and down his jean-covered thigh, creating the most delicious friction on your clit. “Which means tonight’s gonna wind up being a kind of punishment for us both.”

“But why–?”

“That’s enough outta you.” He grunts before politely jamming a pair of thick fingers into your mouth, gagging you. “You know it’s funny, I noticed you tend to listen better when this pretty hole is stuffed full. Now, how about we give this another try?” 

He waits to speak again until you give him a nod. 

“As I was saying, sweet Bird, you’re gonna have to work for this cock. Same goes for my fingers, for my tongue…” Ari chuckles at the sound of your pitiful little whimpers. “Since you wanna be so fucking stubborn all the time – so damned reckless – this is all you’re gonna get from me.” Your cunt pulses when you feel his thigh flex beneath you. “This right here.”   

“Mmpf!” You cry out, only to think better of it when he adjusts his grip on your chin, nearly choking you with his fingers in the process. It also didn’t help that you could feel your pussy was practically dripping, making a mess on his jeans. 

“Still ain’t your turn to talk, baby.” He reminds you, almost mockingly. “You gotta learn to be more patient. Otherwise we’ll be at this all night – not that I mind any.” He’s quick to tack on the last part when he notices the way your body stiffens in response. 

He suspected you weren’t a fan of being held captive like this. His suspicions are confirmed when you shimmy in his lap, calling attention to your bonds with the aid of an angry glare. 

“Oh, you wanna know about the cuffs.” He muses as he takes a moment to wipe away a bit of drool on your chin. “That’s to keep you from touching me the way you’ll want to when you’re busy grinding that needy little pussy on my thigh. I want you to understand what it’s like to have something you want be so close – I’m talkin’ right in front of you – and yet somehow so far at the same time. Kinda like how I felt when I saw you on that roof.”

This was about payback. You think as understanding finally dawns. You knew you’d pissed him off today, scared him even. But you’d had no idea that it would lead to this – you being naked and cuffed while perched on the bounty hunter’s lap.

“Earlier you accused me of being on some kinda macho bullshit. But that ain’t it at all.” His southern drawl grows more pronounced as a bold hand trails its way down the valley between your breasts. “Now it is true that there are women out there who build houses, clean gutters, climb scaffolding – so I’ll give you that point, sweetheart.” His hand is moving again, this time drifting lower until he reaches the softness of your belly. 

“However, the difference between those women and you is that they are trained for that. Whereas you are not. You got no clue what you’re doing up there or the danger you’re messing with.” Ari clears his throat, his sensual lips now set in a thin, firm line. “But even more importantly, those women ain’t mine.” For some reason, his words have your nerve endings buzzing with excitement.   

“You’re mine, baby. I’m not sure what it’s gonna take to make that penetrate, but it is what it is.” He shrugs before gently removing his fingers from your mouth. “I take care of what’s mine in this relationship. I already told you I would take care of those gutters, whether it was me doin’ it myself or finding you a professional, it was always gonna get done. If I was movin’ too slow then you shoulda said something instead of trying to tackle it yourself.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” You breathe as you lightly tug at your restraints. “I am. Now why don’t you uncuff me so I can show you how much?”

“I don’t think so.” Ari cocks his head to the side while he pretends to consider your offer. “Aw. Are we really back to pouting again just that fast, little Bird? Oh well. Guess it’s time you show me how you ride.”

“I can’t though.” You whine, feeling at turns both needy and frustrated.

“You haven’t even tried.” He fires back dismissively. “You manage to get yourself off using only my thigh, I’ll let you have as much of my cock as you can take. Now let’s get on with it. Time to give your man a show.”

With that he leans back, expectantly crossing his arms behind his head. And then he winks, signaling that he’s over any attempts to stall. 

You’re still glaring at him when you finally begin to move. Your toes dig into the plush carpet as you work to maintain your balance, but it’s not easy. You also learn that it’s damn near impossible to produce that same kind of amazing friction you’d tasted earlier without being able to bear down on his thigh.

You needed help. It was either that, or convince him to give you back the use of your hands.         

“Please.” You pant as you continue to grind against him, hating the way he chuckles when you fall forward against his chest. “It’s not working…” You struggle to sit back up, your breasts heaving as you wait to catch your breath before starting again. 

“You’re damn right it’s not working.” Ari agrees, running a hand through his already tousled locks. “Here I am being patient, waiting for you to make a mess on my thigh, and all I’m getting is complaining.”

The smug bastard then has the nerve to lightly jostle his leg, sending you sprawling face-first into his broad chest yet again with a muffled “oof”. And he offers no help when you go to sit up, instead he chooses to watch you struggle. Almost as if he finds it amusing.  

So you start over, this time determined to get yourself off. After that you’d make him uncuff you and then you’d kick his sexy ass out of your godforsaken house for the rest of the night.

“C’mon, baby.” He coos, leaning forward to lap up a single frustrated tear with his sinful tongue. “Don’t cry. We both know that greedy pussy of yours needs more than what you’re givin’ it right now.” 

“Ungh! Shut. Up.” You sob through clenched teeth as your head comes to rest on his shoulder. At least that seemed to make things a little easier. Sweet fuck that was starting to feel good! Now if you just moved a little to the left and – your movements are halted when Ari fists a hand in your hair before dragging you backwards. 

“Nooo…” You wail in protest as a thin sheen of perspiration covers your skin. 

“Tsk, tsk. No cheating.” Your bounty hunter chides.     

“But I can’t – it’s too hard.” You tell him, hating how small and whiny you sound. “I need…I need…”

“Help?” Ari finishes, pinning you with a knowing look. “Because if that’s the case – if that’s really what you need – then all you have to do is ask.” His warm, calloused hands find their way to your hips, holding you steady. “So…ask.”

“M–may I…” You blow out a breath as before starting over. “Will you please help me cum?” You feel your cheeks heat as the words come tumbling out.

“That depends, sweetheart.” He responds thoughtfully. “Are you gonna be my good girl and accept the help however I give it?”

“Yes, Sir.” You tell him. “I’ll be so good for you.”

That’s all Ari needs to hear, because this time when you move he stays with you. Helping guide your body as you work for your pleasure. He watches in awe as you ride him like the goddess you are, your tits bouncing as you writhe against him. 

“That’s right, greedy girl. Use me.” His dick grows harder with every breathless cry that spills from your lips as you follow his commands. “Fuck yeah.” He groans, capturing a pert nipple between his teeth before sucking as much of your ample breast into his mouth as he can manage.    

“S’good, baby!” You sob when he flexes his thigh. By now you’ve soaked your way through his jeans, not that he gives a damn. “YesYesYes!” 

If only because you were finally giving him exactly what he wanted.  

“That’s it, Bird.” One of his hands slides to your bottom, squeezing the tempting flesh before helping you adjust the angle of your ride. “Keep getting me nice and sloppy, otherwise I’m gonna have to tear this ass up. Is that what you want?” 

He delivers several sharp slaps, making you cry out even as you feel that invisible coil tighten in your belly. God, you were so fucking close. You’d never been made to orgasm like this before, but you knew you were only seconds from coming undone. 

“Nah.” He continues as he bites the underside of your breast, not missing the way it makes your pussy gush. “It might not be what you want, but it’s what you need. Right now my girl needs it rough.” He laves at the small hurt with his tongue. “And as your man, I always aim to give it however you need it.” 

“OhGod!Yes!” You keen as white hot pleasure threatens to consume you, your eyes rolling back in your head. “I–I’m gonna…oh fuck!” 

Sensing that you’re seconds from tumbling over the edge, Ari pauses to lift you off of his thigh in one fluid motion – effectively ruining your orgasm. Instantly you feel as if your entire body has been doused with cold water. 

“What’re you..?” Your eyes shoot open as he holds you suspended in the air, your abused cunt spasming in protest. “Why’d we stop?” You peer between your bodies, feeling both ashamed and proud of the sizable wet spot you managed to leave behind on his jeans.   

“Because I don’t think you’re ready to cum just yet.” He smiles when your mouth drops open to emit a strangled groan. “After all, they say a hard head makes for a soft behind. Or in your case I suppose, a tender pussy.” He surveys your poor, swollen clit peeking out from between your puffy lips.

“But I already said I was sorry.” You plead, wishing he would either set you down or at least touch you the way you needed. 

“And you’ll have the rest of the night to prove it to the both of us.” Ari muses, a small part of him taking pleasure in your obvious frustration. “In the meantime, I think it’s time you went for another ride.” He settles you back on his thigh once more before resting his arms behind his head.

“Now, show me what you learned.”

END   

Unofficial Tag List

@katymae12344

@daykrisr99

@identity2212

@hisredheadedgoddess28

@blackhawkfanatic

@jamneuromain

@daykrisr99

@queerqueenlynn

@pono-pura-vida

[blue-likethebird]

Reusing the memory system from botw for the tears of the dragon storyline in totk was such a terrible decision on so many different levels that it’s honestly kind of impressive.

While the botw memory system had flaws of its own, there was one small but significant thing that worked in its favour: botw’s memories were largely separate from the main plot in the past, and have absolutely no bearing on the story being told in the present. Aside from a few specific instances (ie the calamity striking, the ceremony, Link and Zelda becoming closer) the memories are all self-contained moments that emphasize character development over driving the story. Because there’s no major narrative throughline between them, it gives players more freedom to discover in any order regardless of how much they’ve progressed through the main quest without running the risk of stumbling across a memory that ruins something else later on in the game.

(This got long so the rest of my analysis is going under the cut.)

The biggest change between the memories from botw and the dragon’s tears from totk is definitely what kind of information these cutscenes relay to you as the player. Botw’s memories are primarily snapshots of small interpersonal moments that hold very little significance to the greater narrative taking place in the past. Totk’s memories are the greater narrative. With only one major exception -that I’ll touch on in a sec-, every cutscene in the dragon’s tears shows a crucial moment of story development with no time left to explore the characters driving that story forwards. There’s no organic moment revealing, say, a quirk of Rauru’s that Mineru finds annoying, or Sonia’s sense of humour, or any of our literal Main Villain Ganondorf’s motivations for going to war with Hyrule. If there’s any moments of character focus they only happen in ways that advance the plot (meaning the only real character focus is on the characters totk wants the entire universe to orbit around, namely Rauru and Zelda), and as such it’s harder to bring myself to care about what happens to anyone.

To illustrate the point I’m trying to make here, compare the memories of the champions Link regains during the divine beast quests to the conversations with the ancient sages at the end of each temple. The memories make passing mentions of the ongoing preparations for the calamity, but the real purpose of those scenes is to showcase who the champions were as people before their deaths and give us a reason to mourn them, even though we know at the start of our journey that they’re all long gone. In contrast, the conversations with the ancient sages are all about the events of the imprisoning war and their promise to Zelda that their descendants will come to Link’s aid in the future, very obviously copy pasted for each of the five times that cutscene is brought up (which is a particularly egregious moment of bad quest design but that’s a rant for another time) in such a way that none of the 5 incarnations of that cutscene reveal anything new about the ancient sages as characters, to the point where none of them even show their faces. I care about Daruk because the game shows me that he cares deeply about the wellbeing of his fellow champions and brings out the best in others. So why should I care about the nameless, faceless sage of water? What’s there to move me about their struggles if my only interactions with the sages are a series of exposition dumps? If the game can’t give me a reason to sincerely care about its main characters, the whole rest of the story is meaningless.

(As an aside, I get the feeling someone on the dev team caught on to the issue I’m describing here, because the tea party memory sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the dragon tear cutscenes. It’s such a jarring change of pace to have the otherwise plot-heavy dragon’s tears come screeching to a halt for a scene where Sonia sits down with Zelda to have a cute little tea party and talk about absolutely nothing of significance that the whole thing almost seems like it was hastily tacked on to the story later. Given that the next (chronological) memory sees Sonia fall victim to an unceremonious death by chiropractor, it feels like someone realized that Sonia really doesn’t do or say much in the scenes before she dies and threw together the tea party scene so players would have at least one moment to look back on fondly when she’s fridged. But I digress)

The story told in the dragon’s tears is a highly linear one. But the open-ended nature of botw’s memory system remains, meaning that these tears can be found and viewed in any order. At first this doesn’t seem so bad, since the first two tears you’re likely to find if you follow the game’s intended path are also the chronological first and second of the memories you can discover through these geoglyph tears. But after those first two, the game kinda gives up on guiding you towards these tears in a way that flows well with the story they wrote: the closest tear geographically to the two the game initially guides you towards correlates to one of the penultimate scenes of that entire storyline, while the next scene chronologically is found almost halfway across the map. As such, it’s all but guaranteed that you’ll spoil yourself in some way without using either a guide or the (somewhat unintuitive and never fully explained by the game) little map in the forgotten temple. Finding memories in order didn’t matter so much in botw because the scenes you could find still worked well as standalone scenes before you discovered every memory and pieced together the full picture, and the game is never trying to surprise me about the characters’ fates at the end of this storyline: hell the first memory you’re guided to shows the calamity striking. But in contrast, viewing a dragon’s tear at the wrong time can completely ruin the story they’re trying to tell in those cutscenes. During my playthrough, for example, the first tear I found after the game stopped guiding me to them showed Ganondorf removing Sonia’s stone from her dead body. At this point I had known Sonia existed for all of like an hour, so every subsequent appearance she made was ruined for me by the fact that I already knew she was nothing but cannon fodder to be killed off for the sake of another character’s pain (Rauru and Zelda a-fucking-gain). I expected to be pissed that it was so easy to spoil myself, or maybe sad in passing that a character with her potential was so underutilized, but instead I just felt… tired. I wasn’t even halfway to the first settlement and already I was completely numb to the story the game was trying to tell.

But the worst was yet to come. And oh boy was it ever a low point for storytelling in the Zelda series. Remember how I said up above that the memories in botw had no connection to the story in the present? Let’s just say the same cannot be said for the dragon’s tears.

It’s May 2023. I’ve just finished the sage of wind questline. I still have hope that the story the game is trying to tell will be good. Deciding that I’ll go to Goron city next, I head towards the Thyplo skyview tower to expand my map, catch a glimpse of a nearby geoglyph from the air, and glide over to check it out. This geoglyph shows me a memory that not only recaps the entire dragon tear storyline, but also ends on a bit of foreshadowing about Zelda’s fate that’s about as subtle as a brick to the fucking face. By exploring -the thing the game claims it prioritized above all else in the design of its world and quests- I’d once again been hit with spoilers for a major story detail.

My main objective in this game is to find Zelda. It’s the only driving factor behind my journey towards all these different regions. The current big mystery I’m supposed to solve is why Zelda’s causing so much hell for the people of Hyrule. I now knew exactly where she was and what the deal with her appearances in other parts of Hyrule was, and I’d found it completely by accident by doing something the game says over and over again that it wants me to do. Unlike with Sonia’s death, this time I was a mess of emotions. I was pissed the fuck off that this open-world game had punished me twice already for trying to explore. More than that, I was disappointed that a game I had been so excited to play, from a series I had so many fond memories of, had let me down like this. With every subsequent quest where the sages and I chased a Zelda I knew was fake to our next objective, and every NPC wondering where she was that I couldn’t tell the truth to, that disappointment grew. The entire rest of the main story was ruined for me before I had progressed past 1/4th of the regional quests and a third of the dragon’s tears. There was no more sense of anticipation or mystery. I finished the rest of the game with a bitter taste in my mouth and haven’t touched it again since.

Do I think this story could have been good? Honestly, I don’t know, and by now I don’t really care either (that’s a lie. I care so so much and that’s probably why I hate totk as much as I do). But it’s all irrelevant, because like Cinderella’s stepsister cutting off her own heel so she can cram her foot into a glass slipper that’s never going to fit, totk is sabotaged by the devs’ insistence that everything fit itself into a world they custom-made for botw. This isn’t a new formula that the series is following, it’s Nintendo slapping a new coat of paint on an existing skeleton, and I’m not optimistic to see what this particular approach has in store for the Zelda series. Especially not at the price they’re charging for it.

[ezlo-x]

tbh my biggest gripes with totk is the fact that they did it beginner friendly new comer friendly... like i know this is gonna sound mean but genuinely I wish it didn't try to cater to new fans who want to get into tloz cause totk's story failed cause it needed to cater to new zelda fans

idc abt the lore getting rebooted, sure im going to miss the triforce being an essential piece of the story and lore, only to become the Hylian symbol and game's logo (which tbh is strange its like pokemon using the pokeball as their logo/symbol but pokeballs becoming obsolete in new pkmn games). But because it wanted to be new comer friendly botw's story and lore aspects are long gone and only to be referred to as easter eggs to ppl who played botw know. When characters talk about things that happened in botw as if it was a long time ago like the attack of the Calamity 100 years ago but things that actually happened a very long time ago make it sound like its pretty recent.

I don't like how the new sages just don't remember the champions at all. If you get the divine beast helms through sidequests and read their dialogue they speak in this way as it is their first time seeing it like?? Which is so strange cause totk would gladly reference Sidon and Link's companionship with a statue when trying to access Vah Ruta in BotW, but Mipha gets barely a mention from him? My biggest hopes before we got the title of the game was to let go of the champions, as in we don't need them to be back as they already have done what they need to do. But also I didn't want them to be completely gone from the game and only know them through easter eggs and references.

Like yeah TotK is a sequel to BotW but its more so "ok botw was a rough draft, THIS is the story we wanted to do" and it turns out to have inconsistencies. Zelda mentions the Calamity a few times, there are tombstones to placed around Hyrule commemorating people who lost their lives by the Calamity. But the Sheikah technology is completely gone, the towers that were there for eons are gone. I feel like the towers could've been an easy fix to explain why they are gone like "oh these chasms appeared and collapsed the towers, so now we built these new towers in replacement."

Like with Majora's Mask being separate but also a follow up to Ocarina of Time works because. While yes they are using the same characters and same game mechanics. They are using a whole different world/setting that is different from OoT. Where it excuses using the same characters and same game mechanics, cause it has a complete different story but is consistent on where it left off with Ocarina of Time. I honestly thought TotK was going to take place mostly in the skies than in the surface. Since they kept hyping people up with the teaser trailers and then we had SkSw HD being released. Like yeah it will be like some glorified version of SkSw

When I was reading the interviews Nintendo uploaded a few days before TotK's release and saw Fujibayashi say ,"We put in some effort to make sure that it feels comfortable for both first-time players and those with experience of the previous game." In the back of my mind I questioned a bit this cause I mostly asked myself "isn't this a sequel?" but then I reassured myself that they'll probably would reexplain certain things about the previous game and what happened in the story for new comers. But not to this extreme

[ganondoodle]

as i was awake in the middle of the night for like 2 hours bc i felt sick i had more somewhat random totk thoughts

one being that i really hate how raurus response to concerned zelda is, after sonia died in that almost funny how little impactful it was way, "im sure you are here for a reason" (actually, i hate how often this sentence is used in general to .. idk i guess its supposed to be inspiritational???)

bc what does that mean actually? him saying that to someone who got there absolutely by accident really just sounds like "i dont care go figure it out yourself bc i dont want to think about anything concerning you or your troubles lol" i guess its meant to sound like OOOOH fate has BROUGHT you here bc you have to furfill a role you dont know yet (spoiler its being a sacrifice girl with no personality) and besides me hating the 'inescapable fate' trope in general (at least the way its usually done in these games, which is not to struggle against it but willingly accept whatever you are told and pretend thats good) its really jsut goddamn boring and is really only an excuse to well .. ignore her and her trouble; shouldnt you, if you were actually such a cool guy like the game wants me to believe so bad, do everything in your power to get zelda back to her own world before shes pulled even further into the war you caused now that her only ""mentor"" that could help her get more use of her pretty much useless sudden powers is gone too?? i know shes basically dead wife sonia replacement (can of worms ugh) but it still grinds my gears whenever i think of that cutscene, bc i cant help but hear it as the lamest excuse in existence to not care about her and just kinda .. see what happens which in this case means leave zelda completely on her her own since both rauru and mineru die as well (honestly shouldnt rauru have thought about like .. any plan to defeat gan besides dying himself, given hes the oh so cool and goodest guy king whos only mistake was not stabbing gan the second he stepped into their kathedral castle thing, like even if you had a plan it can still fail but it seemed like he just kinda went in with a handful of people that didnt seem to know each other at all, never got names or faces -or unique voices for that matter- to fight gan face to face inlcuding the girl that came from a different time and had nothing to do with any of this conflict and couldnt even really control her sudden new powers just seems pretty stupid)

thought 2

how totk really feels like botw but for the people who didnt like shiekah tech, its not a sequel, its botw again, but version of only sonau, its like a pokemon game that had two versions but one has weirdly incoherent story and acts like the other never existed jsut as a whole its like retreading the same points but worse, all shiekah tech that was so integral to the world and had such a long history just vanishing and no one caring about any of it like it never happened, HELL the titans were called divine beasts in english but i guess they werent divine or important enough to keep around LOL champions WHO and isntead a never before seen or even heard of race for that matter showing up and planting their ass in every place the shiekah were before, dare i say it feels weirdly manipulative, like either them or some outside force erasing every fact about the ancient shiekah and replace them with sonau stuff bc they are the hot new shit now

this is a point that just doesnt stop bothering me, how the shiekah tech seemed so carefully designed and integrated into botws world and story, its a difficult to keep balance after all, integrating high tech stuff into a medieval setting, but they made it work! and then totk comes around and throws a bunch modern day tech into it puts some vague greenish stone filter on its exterior and call that even better more ancient tech; why did they even bother to make pottery inspired laser shooting spider legged robots so well integrated when they throw a car and rockets into the next game without a thought and call it a day, what was the fucking point

it feels like someone was dead set on having a set of legos thrown into the game it had no place in, if you want players to build whatever they want make a building game instead!! especially if you are just gonna throw it in with seemingly no consideration how out of place it feels togehter with the fACT THAT YOU ALREADY HAD AND ANCIENT HIGH TECH CIVILIZATION WITH A VERY DISTINCT AESTHETIC THAT WAS ALREADY WELL INTEGRATED INTO THE WORLD YOU ARE PLANNING TO REUSE WITH ALOT OF MYSTERY AND UNKOWN STUFF ABOUT THEM TO EXPLORE FURTHER YOU COULD HAVE USED!! but i guess they just "didnt want to play with you anymore" and that so much so that they went out of their way to erase every trace of it, i dont think the words shiekah tech are ever used in the game, and the purah pad and her towers just drive me more isnane bc they are the same shit but called different and also much worse, liek the purah pad isnt some more developed shiekah stone, no its a glorified camera with a teleport function and thats it

(i know i said this before but i really cant stand how obsessed every single NPC is with sonau shit, you get told to your face every second line of dialog that they are so cool and are so mysterious that it just makes me annoyed of them even more, the game is obsessed with shoving them everywhere and telling you over and over you too should obsess over them, they werent weird like that about the shiekah stuff in botw?? the biggesst talking point in botw was calamity ganon ..... which makes sense and in totk its like ... gan is mentioned what, in a newspaper article??? once???and then not even by name i think???)

aside from that big point which will never let me go, its also just .. its not moving forward anything, it actively walks BACK the progress that was made in botw, call me dumb but i dont really count moving one step up in the social roles of each race as a character development (for the side characters like the champions desc- ahem SAGES) but mainly zelda ... god how dirty she was done, totk pretty explicitely makes her regress any development she made in botw aside from she likes link uwu and some people like her too, but also not enough to notice that that weird zelda being all evil and weird isnt her (INLCUDING THE CHAMP- SAGES WHO YOU ARE SUPPOSEDLY FRIENDS WITH??? you dont have to be a genius to pick up on that my god, were you all given the mc dumbo potion or what)

she gets put back to square one, back into the little itty bitty princessy maiden role forced upon her by her royal parentage, this time rauru edition, back into a white little dress, back into the scared puppy eyed teenager, back into a situation she cant handle, back into losing everyone around her (tho honestly botw made me care more about rhoam than totk did about rauru), back into being forced to do a big sacrifice- but worse actually

in botw she went to FIGHT AND HOLD GANON IN THE CASTLE SO LINK HAD TIME TO RECOVER AND IT WOULDNT DESTROY THE LAND!! and you are telling me in totk rauru takes up her botw role and she bascially killed herself to ... restore the mastersword.

......... she ... she did that only to be a glorified version of the stone pedestal in the forest. and then she gets returned to normal itty bitty girly no problem via magic sparkle beam at the end and

DOESNT

EVEN

REMEMBER.

it really is just botw but worse, you even get yet another ghost king of hyrule to guide you around (rhoam did it better fight me ... we dont talk about the questionable choice to make himself darker skinned when posing as just some guy)

i honestly dont think i was ever truly taken aback by anythign that happened in botw, while in totk, the further i played, the more i had to fight with myself to keep the feeling of unease, disappointment and betrayal down

its such a god damn shame, totk should have stayed a DLC, i will forever mournfully dream of a game that explores more of the ancient shiekah, doesnt erase integral parts of the world, developes characters more instead of making them regress back and make them end up even less developed than at the start of the game, dives into buried secrets and mistakes of dark pages of history without giving into a weirldy nationalist(imperalisitc?) narrative and lets characters have some agency for once

if it werent for the yiga i might have actually considered refunding the game, just to be at peace with myself

anyway, aboslutely incoherent word vomit.

[cloudyzely]

everything Zelda has ever said in botw

Open your eyes

You’ve been alseep for one hundred years.

That is the sheikah slate. Take it. It will help guide you after your long slumber

Hold the Sheikah Slate up to the pedestal. That will show you the way

Link… You are the light-our light-that must shine upon Hyrule once again. Now go…

Link… Head for the point marked on the map in your Sheikah Slate.

Remember… Try… Try to remember… You have been asleep for the past 100 years.

The beast. When the beast regains its true power, this world will face its end.

Now then… You must hurry, Link

Free the four divine beasts

endings

I’ve been keeping watch over you all this time… I’ve witnessed your struggles ti return to us as well as your trials in battle. I always thought-no, I always believed- that you would find a way to defeat ganon. I never lost faith in you over these many years… Thank you, Link… …the hero of Hyrule. May I ask… Do you really remember me? 

We’ll make our way to Zora’s domain. Divine Beast Vah Ruta…looks like it stopped working. Let’s investigate the situation. Mipha’s father… I believe he would like to hear more about her. The least we can do is visit him and offer him some closure. Although Ganon is gone for now, there is still so much more for us to do. And so many painful memories that we must bear. I believe in my heart, that if all of us work together…  we can restore Hyrule to its former glory. Perhaps…even beyond. But it all must start with us. Let’s be off. I can no longer hear the voice inside the sword. I suppose it would make sense if my power had dwindled over the past 100 years… I’m surprised to admit it… but I can accept that.

Subdueded Cermony

Hero of Hyrule, chosen by the sword that seals the darkness. You have shown unflinching bravery and the skill in the face of darkness and adversity. And have proven yourself worthy of the blessing of the Goddess Hylia. Whether skyward bound, adrift in time, or steeped in the glowing embers of twilight… The sacred blade is forever bound to the soul of the Hero. We pray for your protection…and we hope that- that the two of you will grow stronger together, as one. Forged in the long distance past, the sword this is the part the champions start talking i tried to hear everything as best i could ancient story by through the series of time and distance our hope is on you

Resolve and grief

From here, we’ll make our way to Goron City Then we’ll need some adjustments in that divine beast so Daruk can manage it as easily as possible. He’s figured out how to get it to move… However, it’s apparent that we still have much more to learn. But to think that divine beast was actually built by people… That means we should be able to understand how it works and how to use it to our advantage. These divine beasts…so much we don’t know… But if we want to turn back on the Calamity Ganon, they’re our best hope. Tell me the truth… Jow proficient are you building that sword on your back? Legend says that there’s an ancient voice resonantes inside it. Can you hear it yet…Hero?

Zelda’s resentment

Nothing. Just as I thought. Hmm. It appears that the structure was designed to be exclusively accessed by the sword’s chosen one. But designs can always be worked around, at least I hope. How do I get inside…? I need to activate it somehow. I thought I made it clear that I am not in need of an escort. It seems I’m the only one with the mind of my own. I, the person in question, am fine, regardless of the king’s orders. Return to the castle. And tell that to my father, please. And stop following me!

Urbosa’s hand

Urbosa! What was that?! Did you feel that? Wait, what-how did you- what are you doing here?! wh-whats so funny?

A premonition

That cut doesn’t look too bad, actually. You’re fine for now. But you know, there’s a fine line between courage and recklessness. As brave as you are, that does not make you immortal. it seems that not only are the frequency of these types of attacks on the rise… but the scale of the beasts we are facing is intensifying as well. I fear that- I fear that this is an omen that portends the return of Calamity Ganon. And if that’s the case, I’m ready to expect the worst. We’ll need to make preparations as soon as possible. 

Silent Princess

Theres one! And look another! The flowers we have in Hyrule aren’t just beautiful… They’re also quite useful as ingredients for variety of things. this one is called the silent princess. It’s a rare, endangered species. despite our efforts, we can’t go them domestically yet. The princess can only thrive out here in the wild. All we can hope is that the species will be strong enough to prosper on its own. Is that why I think it is?! Look at this! I don’t believe it, but I actually caught one! This delicacy is known to have very, very potent effects under the proper circumstances. Tada! Research from the castle shows injecting one of these can actually augment certain abilities. We wouldn’t be in a controlled environment out here, but with your level physical fitness… you’d be a perfect candidate for the study! Go on! Taste it!

Sheltering from the storm

I doubt this will let up anytime soon… Your path seems to mirror your father’s. You’ve dedicated yourself to becoming a knight, as well. Your commitment to the training necessary to fulfill your goal is really quite admirable. I see now why you would be the chosen one. What if… One day… You realized that you just weren’t meant to be a fighter. Yet the only thing people ever said… was that you were born to a family of royal guards and so no matter what you thought, you had to become a knight. If that was the only thing you were ever told… I wonder, then… would you have chosen a different path?

Father and Daughter

Incredible… We’re at a point now where we can actually control them. At the current rate, we’ll soon know all we need to know about the guardians and the divine beasts! And should Ganon ever show itself again, we’ll be positioned to defend ourselves.

I… I was assessing the results of the experiment with the guardians. These pieces of ancient technology could be quite useful against the-

I’m doing everything I can. I’ll have you know I just recently returned from the Spring of Courage where I offered every ounce of my prayers to the Goddess-

I already am. Don’t you see-there’s nothing more I can do! My hope is… My hope is that you-  That you’ll allow me to contribute here in whatever way I can. 

Yes. Yes I understand.

Slumbering power

I come seeking help…regarding this power that has been handed down over time…

Prayer will awaken my power to se Ganon away… Or so I’ve been told all my life… and yet Grandmother heard them-the voices from the spirt realm. And Mother said her power would develop within me. But I don’t hear… or feel anything! Father has told me time and time again… He always says, “Quit wasting your time playing at being a scholar!” Curse you. I’ve spent every day of my life dedicated to praying! I’ve pleaded to the spirits tied to ancient gods… And still the holy powers have proven deaf my devotion. Please just tell me… What is it…? What’s wrong with me?!

To mount layruru

“Be sure to take the time to soothe your mount…That’s the only way it will know how you truly feel.” Your advice was quite helpful-thank you.  This little one and I are getting along quite well now. At first, I wasn’t sure if I should outfit him with all of the royal gear. I thought maybe he should have to earn it first. But it works! Hd wears it like a true natural. I’m trying to be more empathetic. Benefit of the doubt, you know?  See that mountain? That’s Mt. Lanayru. It takes its name from the Goddess of wisdom. Lanayru’s decree is very specific. It says: “No one is allowed, under the age of seventeen… For only the wise are permitted a place upon the mountain.” I’ve prayed at the Spring of Courage and at the Spring of Power,  yet neither awoke anything inside me. But maybe up there… Perhaps the Spring of Wisdom, the final of the three, will be the one. To be honest, I have no real reason to think that will be the case. But there’s always the chance that the next moment will change everything. Tomorrow…is my seventeenth birthday. So then I shall go… and make my way up the mountain.

Return of calamity ganon

I’m sorry, no. 

That’s kind of you, thank you.

It’s awake. Ganon!

No! I am not a child anymore! I may not be much use on the battlefield… But there must…There must be something I can do to help!

Despair

How… How did it come to this?  The Divine Beasts…The guardians… They’ve all turned against us… It was… Calamity Ganon. It turned them all against us! And everyone- Mipha, Urbosa, Revali and Daruk… They’re all trapped inside those things… It’s all my fault! Our only hope for defeating Ganon is lost all because I couldn’t harmess this cursed power! Everything-everything I’ve done up until now… It was all for nothing… So I really am jealous a failure! All my friends… the entire kingdom… my father most of all… I tried, and I failed them all…I’ve left them…all to die

Zelda’s awakening

Link, save yourself! Go! I’ll be fine! Don’t worry about me! Run! 

NO! 

Was… was that…? The power… No, no… Link! Get up! You’re going to be just fine. The sword… So he can… He can still be saved. Take Link to the shrine of resurrection. If you don’t get him there immediately, we are going to lose him forever! Is that clear? So make haste and go! His life is now in your hands! 

The master sword

Your master will come for you. Until then, you shall rest safely here. Although the Slumber of Restoration will most certainly deprive him of his memories, please trust me when I say that I know he will arrive before you yet again. 

The master sword… I heard it speak to me. It seems that my role is unfinished. There is still something I must do. Great Deku tree, I ask of you, when he returns, can you please relay this message… Tell him I-

Yes.

Champion Revali’s song

My apologies. I went to the village, and I was told I could find you here. Thank you Revali. If we work together. I’m certain we’ll be able to defeat- 

Champion Daruk’s song

Thank you Daruk!

You sound like father. He’s assigning a knight to watch over me wherever I go. I hear the top contender is the most accomplished swordsman in all of Hyrule.

Oh! You’re safe. It seems our friend here was the one being attacked. Precious boy. You saved his life!

I never imagined the Great Daruk would have weakness. 

Champion Mipha’s song

Goron vigilance, Daruk, Rito confidence, Revali. Gerudo spirit, Urbosa. And also… the Hylian with the sword that seals the darkness. Link. 

Mipha… Perhaps he is still too young to swim up this big waterfall. 

Champion Urbosa’s song

Gerudo cheif Urbosa… On behalf of Hyrule and its king, I thank you.

I’ve never seen you so serious, Urbosa!

Urbosa! Huh? You mean mother?

Ceramony

It is. Apparently there are more uses for it than we originally thought. Sadly, we’ve yet to decipher all of its secrets.

Zelda’s diary

page 1

After meeting with the Champions, I left to research the ancient technology, but nothing of note came of my research.

The return of Ganon looms—a dark force taunting us from afar. I must learn all I can about the relics so we can stop him.

If the fortune-teller's prophecy is to be believed, there isn't much time left...

Ah, but turning over these thoughts in my head puts me ill at ease. I suppose I should turn in for the night.

P.S. Tomorrow my father is assigning HIM as my appointed knight...

Page 2

I set out for Goron City today to make some adjustments to Divine Beast Vah Rudania.

I still recall feeling his eyes on me as I walked ahead. The feeling stayed with me so long, I grew anxious and weary.

It is the same feeling I've felt before in his company... And still, not a word passes his lips.

I never know what he's thinking! It makes my imagination run wild, guessing at what he is thinking but will not say.

What does the boy chosen by the sword that seals the darkness think of me? Will I ever truly know?

Then, I suppose it's simple. A daughter of Hyrule's royal family yet unable to use sealing magic... He must despise me.

page 3

I said something awful to him today...

My research was going nowhere. I was feeling depressed, and I had told him repeatedly not to accompany me.

But he did anyway, as he always does, and so I yelled at him without restraint.

He seemed confused by my anger. I feel terribly guilty...and that guilt only makes me more agitated than I was before.

page 4

I am unsure how to put today's events into words. Words so often evade me lately, and now more than ever.

He saved me. Without a thought for his own life, he protected me from the ruthless blades of the Yiga Clan.

Though I've been cold to him all this time...taking my selfish and childish anger out on him at every turn...

Still, he was there for me. I won't ever forget that. Tomorrow, I shall apologize for all that has transpired between us.

And then...I will try talking to him. To Link. It’s worth a shot!

page 5

Bit by bit, I've gotten Link to open up to me. It turns out he's quite a glutton. He can't resist a delicious meal!

When I finally got around to asking why he's so quiet all the time, I could tell it was difficult for him to say. But he did.

With so much at stake, and so many eyes upon him, he feels it necessary to stay strong and to silently bear any burden.

A feeling I know all too well... For him, it has caused him to stop outwardly expressing his thoughts and feelings.

I always believed him to be simply a gifted person who had never faced a day of hardship. How wrong I was...

Everyone has struggles that go unseen by the world... I was so absorbed with my own problems, I failed to see his.

I wish to talk with him more and to see what lies beneath those calm waters, to hear him speak freely and openly...

And perhaps I, too, will be able to bare my soul to him and share the demons that have plagued me all these years

page 6

Father scolded me again today. He told me I am to have nothing more to do with researching ancient technology.

He insisted that I focus instead on training that will help me awaken my sealing magic.

I was so frustrated and ashamed I could not even speak. I've been training since I was a child, and yet...

Mother passed the year before my training was to begin. In losing her, I lost not just a mother, but a teacher.

Mother used to smile and tell me, "Zelda, my love, all will be well in the end. You can do anything."

But she was wrong. No matter how I try or how much time passes...the sealing power that is my birthright evades me.

Tomorrow I journey with Link to the Spring of Power to train. But this, too, will end in failure. Such is my curse.

page 7

I had a dream last night... In a place consumed by darkness, a lone woman gazed at me, haloed by blinding light.

I sensed she was...not of this world. I don't know if she was a fairy or a goddess, but she was beautiful.

Her lips spoke urgently, but her voice did not reach me. Would I have heard her if my power was awoken?

Or was my dream simply a manifestation of my fears? I am sure I will know the answer soon, whether I wish to or not...

page 8

I turned 17 today. That means this is the day I will finally be allowed to train at the Spring of Wisdom.

When Link arrives, we will set out for Mount Lanayru. The other Champions will accompany us there.

I have not seen my father since he last scolded me. Things are too strained now... I will meet with him when I return.

Actually...I've had a horrible feeling ever since that weird dream. No one would believe a failure of a princess, but...

Right now, for no particular reason, I am filled with a strange and terrible certainty that something awful is about to happen.

Research journal

 page 1

Today I met with Impa of the Sheikah tribe and began my research into the ancient technology in earnest.

Impa introduced me to Purah and Robbie, other respected members of her tribe.

Tomorrow I embark on an excavation with them.

We hope to find ancient tech with which to operate the Guidance Stones 

page 2

Today we uncovered some ancient technology that we believe may have the power to control the Guidance Stone.

It is a rectangular object, small enough to be held in my two hands. Sheikah text is featured prominently on it.

It is made of an unknown material, but we believe it is the same as the shrines scattered across each region.

Impa proposed that I hold on to it for now. I hope that it leads to some new developments in our research.

page 3

The stone relic we discovered has been named. We are calling it the Sheikah Slate.

We have not found any mention of a name for this object in the records we have unearthed so far...

Nevertheless, Purah insisted we call it the Sheikah Slate, as the relic is a slate made by the Sheikah tribe.

Feels a bit on the nose to me, but it was not a fight I thought I could win

page 4

We did it. We were finally able to restore some functionality to the Sheikah Slate.

We have discovered that this stone slate is capable of producing...images. Perfect likenesses of the things you point it at.

Unlike normal pictures drawn by hand, this requires no artist to capture anything in perfect detail.

I deeply admire the accomplishments of Sheikah technology. Still...I know there is more to learn. There must be.

We believe the Sheikah Slate may have a function that will allow it to control the Guidance Stone.

We must continue our research, and quickly.

page 5

We have started training the Champions who will pilot the Divine Beasts.

It may sound rude that I found this unexpected, but Mipha mastered the controls with surprising ease.

Daruk struggled at first but eventually got the hang of it. Urbosa and Revali both managed just fine as well.

I can finally see the light of hope in our fight against the rising Calamity.

page 6

Robbie has restored mobility to many of the Guardians we've excavated.

...But we have still yet to find all of the Guardians. Records mention a greater number of them—and even other types.

They are said to be stored in five giant columns that rest beneath Hyrule Castle. The thing is...

No matter how I search beneath the castle, I can't seem to locate these columns. They must be buried deep.

Were they perhaps designed to sense the appearance of Calamity Ganon and to only activate upon his return?

page 7

Countless ancient structures are being discovered across Hyrule...but all attempts to enter them have failed.

Records indicate that these are facilities designed to train the hero who is fated to combat the Calamity.

But the crucial activation mechanism remains a mystery. Is the Sheikah Slate the key to activating them?

That is Purah's theory, and I concur. And yet, my experiments so far have been fruitless.

Still, we must exhaustively investigate all means of opposing the Calamity. We must not give up, no matter what!

page 8

I spoke with Purah about the Shrine of Resurrection we discovered earlier.

As we speculated, this particular shrine is, in fact, a medical facility with the power to heal.

It also has a long-term stasis function that can be activated and maintained until healing is complete.

In the war against the Calamity 10,000 years ago...were the injuries so great as to necessitate such a facility?

If so, I will remain uneasy until we have made all adjustments necessary to restore it to full working order.

I can only pray that even if Calamity Ganon returns, our battle will not require the Shrine of Resurrection's power...

[blueskittlesart]

what do u think totk is gonna b about

OH WOW I AM SO SO SO GLAD YOU ASKED!! HERES THE ESSAY I TOTALLY DID NOT HAVE PREWRITTEN ABOUT THIS SUBJECT!!

so arguably the biggest mystery left unsolved at the end of botw is the origin of ganon as we now know him -- "calamity ganon." in all other games (and by extension all known previous incarnation cycles) where "ganon" was the primary antagonist (incl. all ganon and ganondorf variants) ganon was something real, physical, and ALIVE. a man or a boar-monster, usually, but always something that was bound by the laws of nature to some degree and could be physically killed. botw departs from that formula (and by extension botw's CYCLE departs from the usual governing laws of its own universe--i'll come back to this point) by showing us a ganon that is far less human than any other known incarnation of demise. even in name, this incarnation of ganon is given no personhood--it's a calamity, a force of evil with no origin and no complex thought beyond a need for destruction.

The thing is, for all the game wants the player to understand this ganon as nothing but a mindless, monstrous force of evil, it also makes a point to identify this force as GANON, incarnation of demise. seasoned zelda fans will relate the calamity back to ganondorf the human king at the first mention of its name. anyone familiar with the cyclical lore or even just the basic formula of zelda games will recognize the cycle's steps being played out in such a way that the calamity plays the part of the king of evil. for those who don't make the immediate connection, urbosa's final line after the player frees her in vah naboris cements the calamity's former personhood: "it was written that calamity ganon once adopted the form of a gerudo." it's a deliberate hint to new players that the form we see ganon take in this game is not his true one.

So what is calamity ganon? what turned the newest human incarnation of demise so deeply inhuman? what happened to the human that calamity ganon once was? why, when the calamity struck, did it rise from underneath hyrule castle, with pillars full of armed guardians ready to aid it in its destruction? these questions are what i expect will be the main focus of totk. as for their answers, i only really have my own speculation, backed by some evidence from trailers and botw, which i'll outline now because that's the whole point of this post.

botw is 10k years removed from the last known instance of an incarnation cycle, a fact which is crucial to its story and worldbuilding. while there's no official source on how long periods of peace usually last between cycles, it's obvious from context that botw has gone much longer without a new cycle than any previous game before it, if only because of how much information about the cycle itself has clearly been lost to time. this lack of information is what causes a majority of the problems link and zelda face in botw. But it raises a question for those of us who follow the lore and have noticed the discrepancy: why was hyrule able to forget this information in the first place? Why was there such a long period of peace when the cycle ought to have continued? there's no other instance in centuries of documented hyrulian history where enough time passed between cycles for the idea of the TRIFORCE to be lost to time. how did it happen before botw? the answer, I think, lies with the hero and princess of 10k years ago.

there's a LOT we don't know about the hero and princess who came before botw, obviously. and I believe their story is going to be incredibly important in totk, given how it was teased in botw. we can assume, from context, that the incarnation of demise that this hero and princess went up against was the gerudo incarnation of ganon mentioned by urbosa. What botw tells us about this cycle is that ganon was powerful enough to need legions of guardians and four divine beasts ALONG with a presumably fully-realized hero and princess to defeat him, but that, with these resources, the hero and princess triumphed. what is not confirmed, however, is what exactly HAPPENED to ganon after his defeat. one could assume that he died, because hitting a human man with a sword enough times will usually kill him. however, there's another important piece to the puzzle when looking at loz cycles: zelda and her goddess power. the thing i'm going to be focusing on here is the fact that throughout botw zelda's power is referred to specifically as a "sealing power." it's significant to me that the concept of SEALING surivived when so many other crucial pieces of the cycle did not, because, in multiple previous games, "sealing" ganon does NOT mean he dies. in both oot timelines in which link DOES NOT return to the past at the end of the game (defeat & adult), the official explanation as to ganondorf's fate is that he is "sealed" in some form, either in the sacred realm or the twilight realm. (if you don't know what those are don't worry it's not important, what's important is that he is sealed.) alttp and twilight princess, follow the aftermath of these two timelines, in which ganon has been "sealed" but not killed. in both stories, ganon (specifically the SAME INCARNATION OF GANON AS OOT) eventually frees himself from the confines of the seal and continues to terrorize hyrule. so "sealing" is not necessarily synonymous with defeat or death, and it doesn't reset the incarnation cycle for demise's spirit, it just keeps the current incarnation dormant for a while.

i hear you saying, "blue, why the fuck does any of this matter? ive been reading for so long!" and i am sorry. i promise i will get there. the important point at this point is that SEALED does not mean DEAD or even DEFEATED, and that zelda's power in botw is exclusively referred to as a SEALING POWER. we can assume that this terminology is left over from the hero and princess from 10k years ago, because, by virtue of a 10k-year period of peace, most everything that botw hyrule remembers about the cycle appears to be left over from only that previous cycle. What this means is that, upon defeat 10k years ago, human ganon was not killed, he was sealed. and as i've already mentioned, there's a precedent in these games for a sealed ganon to come back to terrorize a new cycle's hero and princess. I think it's pretty obvious that the mummified gerudo skeleton seen in the totk trailers is that sealed ganon from 10k years ago. but those trailers take place AFTER link and zelda defeat calamity ganon in botw, so why is he still there, sealed but not dead?

the most obvious explanation to me is this: calamity ganon is not ganon. botw's blights give us proof that ganon is capable of somehow reproducing itself in smaller, less powerful doses to deal with immediate threats without having to leave its shelter in hyrule castle. if you recall, calamity ganon's first phase underneath hyrule castle is essentially a rehash of the blight fights, with ganon cycling through attacks previously used by its blights (and adding some new ones into the mix, obv.) One thing that struck me when fighting it, though, is that the fight lacks one signature mechanic that's been a staple of ganon battles in the zelda franchise since at least alttp: sword pong. in almost every game involving a fight with an incarnation of ganon, there's an attack pattern in which the player and ganon have to deflect a ball of energy between each other via their weapons until one of them eventually misses a swing and gets hit. calamity ganon doesn't have this attack in his arsenal, which is strange to me because it's an iconic move for loz final battles. the only ganon battle i can think of which DOESN'T involve this mechanic is oot's shadow ganondorf, a PROJECTION of ganondorf rather than the real thing.

can you see what i'm getting at here?

I don't think botw's link and zelda have gone up against their real incarnation of demise yet. I think the calamity was one of two things: either a genuine expression of rage/escape attempt by the sealed human ganon, or a calculated attempt by him to get modern hylians interested enough in the origins of the calamity to investigate and free him accidentally. The way the pillars rose from under hyrule castle, the fact that calamity ganon smashes through the floor of the sanctum and forces link to fight in that underground chamber, it all seems to beckon you to dig deeper. we know that that mummy is somewhere under the castle. Calamity ganon was a shootoff of its power meant to lead hylians to it. this is what i meant way back when i mentioned that botw's cycle departs from the usual governing laws of its own universe--link and zelda haven't actually played out the full cycle at all. what they've done is essentially the precursor to the main event--they've defeated agahnim, or zant, or ghirahim, but the true evil of this cycle has yet to be revealed. to that point, it's worth noting that, excluding shrine mini-dungeons, botw has WAY less dungeons than your average zelda title. most new-cycle titles (by which i mean games that weren't direct sequels featuring the same incarnation of a given link) are divided into 2 sections of dungeoning - the first section having 3-4 dungeons containing prize items needed to unlock some late-game functionality, and the second half having 5-7 dungeons and being accessible only after the player has completed the first section. botw has four dungeons TOTAL (not counting hyrule castle), meaning formula-wise it's essentially the first half of a cycle. i believe totk is going to be the second half of this cycle, with link and zelda having to fight the true evil -- revitalized HUMAN ganondorf.

so now we need to bring this all back to my initial point--why was there a 10k-year period of peace pre-botw, and how does any of this effect my predictions for the story of totk?

in simple terms, i think that the reason there was such a long period of peace was because 10k-years-ago-princess sealed ganon REALLY well. she probably came the closest anyone in hyrule's history has ever come to a TRUE defeat of ganon, because she managed to keep him ALIVE so he wouldn't reincarnate and SEALED so he couldn't hurt anyone for a really long time. what this implies is that 10k-years-ago princess knew on some level about the reincarnation cycle. she understood that if she couldn't keep ganon alive and incapacitated, he would revive and the cycle would start over anyway, so she did everything in her power to stop that from happening, and she did a DAMN GOOD JOB tbh. better than anyone who tried this shit before her. there are other bits and pieces of botw's story that point to the hyrulean civilization 10k years ago understanding the potential of a ganon reincarnation, most notably the fact that they buried guardians and divine beasts seemingly purposefully for later hyruleans to find and use should a new threat ever arise. this implies that 10k-years-ago hyruleans had a REALLY HIGH level of awareness about the cycle, in direct contrast to modern hyrule's REALLY LOW understanding of it. this is really important when we start thinking about totk.

we already have a decent amount of evidence suggesting that totk will deal with the events of 10k years ago and the hero involved in them. In several trailers now we've seen modern link's arm become weirdly, creepily fused with/corrupted by the arm that was holding mummified ganon in place under the castle. i think this arm is going to serve two purposes in totk. the first is a practicality thing: from gameplay footage it looks like the arm is going to basically take the place of the sheikah slate. the second purpose i think it'll serve is to be link's (and by extension the player's) connection to the events of 10k years ago. I've seen plenty of theories thrown around about what the arm is, but my personal theory is that it's some sort of prosthetic or tech that originally belonged to the 10k-years-ago hero. the way it's holding mummified ganon in place in that first teaser trailer looks less to me like an evil influence and more like something physically holding ganon down; a seal of sorts. (and in most games both the hero and princess's power is needed to seal ganon, so perhaps this is how the hero and princess managed to keep him dormant for so long: adding a physical piece of the hero to the mix?) in any case, i think that after establishing this physical connection to the 10k-years-ago hero, modern link is going to get some knowledge and flashbacks (potentially in the form of memory-style cutscenes like botw) that will serve to basically fill in all the cyclical lore that has been lost in-universe over the past 10k years. I've talked at length about how i believe link and zelda's initial failure in botw was due entirely to their lack of knowledge of the hyrulean creation myth and the REASON behind the motions they were carrying out, and i believe that by witnessing the 10k-years-ago hero and princess's journey, modern link will be given the knowledge he needs to defeat ganon.

[paragonrobits]

There is something Link does, whenever he passes near Lurelin. His legs seem to move on his own, and a sudden feral surge presses him on. Something old speaks to him: Hurry! Do not wait! Go!

It happens, again and again, when he is freeing the Divine Beasts, and it happens again after the islands of the Zonai rise into the sky, and the sages of the modern era must be united. He does not like using the instant travel of either Sheikah towers or Zonai relics; it feels... inappropriate, like walking naked across tombs and empty, sad temples.

He did not have company before, but he does now.

The Sages, as he understands it, might not physically be around him unless he summons their Wills to him as avatars, but they are still there. He can feel their presences around him, and he can feel their minds in contact with his own. They can see what he sees, feel what he does. He speaks to them, sometimes, when he feels the questioning rise; Tulin is loudest of all, and Riju tries to be more genteel and wait, but she is still a child, and less patient than she wants to show. Yunobo has learned the value of waiting and listening, and Link can feel the weight of him pondering the things Link tells him, silently or otherwise. And Sidon makes his presence known only when he seems to think its needed.

Sometimes Link wishes he was less cautious. Sidon is a friend, and one of the last remnants of the times before the Calamity; being around him is a complicated thing, full of loss and grief and lingering memories of everyone that was gone now. But he's still familiar, and a friend, and even if Link and Mipha had never been married, he still feels like Sidon is his brother-in-law.

Link is not the kind of person to go out of his way to seek counsel. He is definitely not the kind of person who needs constant social interaction. Nonetheless, he does need his friends, and he certainly needs it now.

They are with him, their presences clustering around him as he approaches the Mirror.

He doesn't know why his hands shake.

He doesn't know why he feels wetness on his face.

And Link does not know why the sight of the Mirror of Twilight feels his heart with longing, so sudden and so fierce that he wants to squeeze his arms and let the loss out.

Behind him, he knows, there are countless lifetimes of being the Hero; a thousand lifetimes of battling evil (whether it was Ganondorf in one guise or another, and sometimes it was not), and a thousand lifetimes of losing someone in some way. Somehow, this hurts worse.

He doesn't know why the mirror hurts so much, or why he keeps feeling compelled to come here. He knows that once, he stood before this mirror.

No, he realizes with a dull and unhappy certainty. He had not come there alone.

Two people had come there.

Two people had left, he supposed, but not together, and they never saw each other again.

For a long moment, he wondered. Did that hero (did he, Link thinks suddenly) find a way to open that mirror, just for a moment? Did he find a way through?

He thinks about how, in all the scant records Zelda had found pouring over the stories of their ancestors, the Hero of Twilight's stories simply... stopped. After the princess of Twilight vanished from the world, so did he.

He stares at the broken mirror. He thinks about broken hearts, too, and that responsibility can be a chain.

He wonders if, perhaps, the hero of Twilight had crossed that border, never to return. And he thinks about how the Zonai look so much like what the people of Twilight were said to look like; than another hero, born far later, had carried both the hero's blood and the Zonai, and the red-orange hair that the twilight princess had, at least in the stories he found.

Maybe the hero had found a way to cross the border this mirror marked, somehow.

Link stares at the broken mirror, and he thought about broken engagements, and promises never to be fulfilled.

It was nice to imagine some other hero finding his princess, and remaining with her once his role was fulfilled.

He tries not to think about it much.

The presence of the sages, of Tulin and Riju and Yunobo and Sidon, stand there with him.

Link remains surrounded by loss, and here in this reminder of an ancient loss, he thinks about the time of twilight, and that shadows can feel so much like a caress, and he thinks of how it felt when he realized Mipha had planned to propose to him before she died.

He thinks about the feeling of a vast rift tearing open inside him, raw and weeping and awful.

He thinks for a while about cycles, and repeating elements, and he just feels very, very tired.

[kallie-den]

Hunting Hound

Leinth Aritimis, a rebel pilot, is captured by the enemy. Her personal hero, Sartha Thrace, is there to be a lifeline - but she's a changed woman. Can Leinth set Sartha free? Or is Sartha so lost to Handler's brainwashing, she'll betray a woman who trusts her above everything else?

This is a sequel to Warhound! Please make sure to read that story first so that you can understand this one

If you enjoy my work and are looking for more, or you want to support me, I strongly encourage you to check out my Patreon! I  write erotica full-time, which means I need your patronage to keep creating, and my Patrons also get benefits like early access to my stories, extra stories, and the ability to vote on what I write next! So, if that sounds good to you, head over and join the couple hundred patrons I already have :)

---

Nothing makes Leinth Aritimis feel good the way being saddled up in the cockpit of a huge mech suit does.

It’s not a rare refrain for a pilot. Most are enraptured by the sheer power it brings. You can feel it in your gut; the thrum of the engine, the shaking of the earth, the divine thunder of artillery. It’s never been that for Leinth, though. Truth be told, the noise and fury of her own Genetor still frightens her at times. But what really matters is what it lets her do.

Fight.

Leinth never set out to be a hero herself. She just wanted to be a little like her own heroes. To do her part. That was the least anyone could do, and the duty had grown heavy in her belly during the last years of her adolescence, until she was finally old enough to join up. The war isn’t going well. They’re always on the back foot. But that means Leinth always has something to defend, and knowing that makes her strong. The looks of hope and relief she sees on peoples’ faces when she dismounts after a long, hard-fought battle - that’s what feels good.

Now, after a couple of years, people were starting to call her a hero. Crazy.

She doesn’t deserve it, and she always tells them so. She’s no Sartha Thrace, and her Genetor is certainly no Ancyor. Ancyor is a proud old beast. Genetor is a slab. A fortress as much as a vehicle. Huge, angular, unwieldy - but not for Leinth. She’s learned well how to wield it. In her hands, the rebel prototype is a bulwark. She takes pride in that, and she’s proud of her machine in turn. Proud of the way it keeps moving even now, with an awful, jagged chunk taken out of its right leg.

Leinth reaches up overhead and punches a few switches, shunting power into the sensor suite for one more sweep. A few moments later, it clicks back its report. Nothing. No movement. That’s a  relief. Maybe it’s actually over.

“Genetor reporting,” she says into her radio. “Sector is clear. I’m gonna stay out just a little longer. Make sure the bastards are gone for good.”

You got it, comes the warm reply, after a brief burst of static. But I think we got ‘em, Leinth. Don’t wear yourself out.

Right now there’s little choice but to take the sensors at their word. No use looking outside, that’s for damn sure. The day’s fighting has turned the cityscape into a blackened ruin where ash hangs in the air like fog, billowing on unnatural winds. What tall buildings remain are nothing more than burnt rebar skeletons ; in amongst them are the carcasses of mechs that haven’t quite managed to fall, looming over the shattered concrete like strange, harrowed statues. Most of them are so ravaged by the firestorm, Imperial and rebel models look exactly alike.

It’s demoralizing. But as long as there’s land and there’s people, they can rebuild. Leinth always insists upon that, to herself.

It’s been bad here. Intense. A fresh Imperial offensive. There’s no telling how much worse tomorrow might be. This could have been the final battle or merely an opening skirmish. Sometimes the resources and reserves at the enemy’s disposal seem all but unlimited. There’s a push-pull logic to the ever-moving front lines that Leinth can’t perceive. It’s not her job to, as a pilot. But like everyone else, she knows that they are not winning.

Maybe they can win here. Maybe Leinth can be the rock on which the tide breaks. She’s the one who never loses faith.

The falling dusk is a mercy, in a way. It hides the worst of the damage, and the most heartbreaking details. The contents of a wardrobe and a life ripped out of a building by an artillery shell and strewn all over the ashen ground. No good comes from looking. Those things - the human traces, the human remains - are too small for most mech pilots to notice. But in quiet moments, Leinth finds herself looking, magnifying them to fill the Genetor’s viewscreen. It’s a bad habit, and the darkness of night saves her from it. If she indulges, it’s too easy to let her thoughts turn to dark things.

Dark things like Sartha Thrace.

It’s been months since she disappeared. She went out like a hero. Her Ancyor was last seen plunging deep into the enemy’s lines to fight a furious rearguard. She’s listed as MIA not KIA, technically, but Leinth has done her best to make her peace with her hero’s passing. The rumors are making it damn hard, though. Rumors about seeing the Ancyor back in service on the wrong side of the war. Rumors about it moving the way only she could make it move.

Leinth hates hearing that shit. She’s said so often enough and angrily enough that no one says it to her face anymore. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t overhear when people are whispering about it. And it’s hard as hell to get it out of her head. Sartha Thrace means the world to her. Meant the world to her. That poster above her bunk in the barracks. An idol. Even Leinth’s transition goal, in the early days before she knew better. Now the kind thing to do is to let her memory rest until the time comes when they can honor it properly.

It’s not that she doesn’t wish Sartha Thrace was still alive. She wishes that more than anything. Especially in battles like these, it sure would be nice to have a hero to believe in.

Genetor! Headed your way! Leinth!

The urgency of her CO’s voice on the radio catches her attention just as much as her name. Leinth snaps back to attention and looks down at her scope - and then freezes. Her first response - her rational response - is that it’s a glitch. It has to be. It doesn’t make sense for a heat signature like that to be moving that fast. Then instinct takes flight. Leinth can feel it already. The vibrations. The heat in the air. She brings Genetor around to face the new threat, brings her weapons up, and kicks her searchlights up to max.

It’s too late. No time to brace herself. Ancyor is upon her.

Leinth would recognize its savage face anywhere, even here, and it makes her hesitate. If she wasn’t already screwed, that pause is what screws her. Once Leinth can make her hands move, it’s far too late to make use of Genetor’s shields. And Ancyor doesn’t stop to launch a blow. It simply barrels into her. With a raw howl of steel on steel, the mechs collide. Genetor might be a slab, but Ancyor is monstrously strong and it has momentum. There’s no contest. The impact sends Leinth off-balance. The ACS screams at her, but there’s nothing to be done.

Genetor topples over. The bastion falls.

And it will not be allowed to stand. Ancyor is still on her, driving its massive chainblades into the prone mech’s limbs. Leinth cries out in panic. She feels the severance in her own flesh. The rattling, the noise, the flashing lights as Genetor’s systems struggle to shunt power to the cockpit - it’s a nightmare. She already knows she’s lost. There’s no coming back from this.

But it gets worse. Ancyor rears up, and amongst the ashen city, lit only by Genetor’s flickering searchlights, it looks truly awful in its lupine fury. Then it brings its fist down, right on the cockpit. The sound of the blow is an awful crunch; a noise no metal should ever make. Leinth screams as the wall of her cockpit starts to bow in against her. Genetor holds, but only just. Another blow has it convulse, and Leinth’s scream is silenced when her head is thrown back against the back of the cockpit. No ACS to compensate now.

She starts seeing in black and white. Not good. Concussion, at least. It happened so fast. Leinth is still struggling to believe in what she’s seeing and feeling. It doesn’t make sense.

There’s only one woman who can pilot Ancyor like this. But it’s not her. It’s not her.

There’s no third blow. Or if there is, Leinth is too far gone to feel it. She hears something, though. Other vehicles approaching. Not mechs. Smaller. They get close, then stop, then Leinth hears scrambling. Shouting. Climbing. The realization of what’s happening makes her breath catch with fear, but she’s beyond even adrenaline now. Darkness is here for her.

The last thing she feels before oblivion is the Imperial engineers starting to drill their way into Genetor’s cockpit.

***

There is no time, in the room. No daylight, no clock. Leinth has been counting sleeps and by that tally it’s been fifteen days, but that’s surely off by a day or more. Especially given how hard she got knocked around.

Leinth remembers being pulled from Genetor’s cockpit. She remembers being bound and guarded and dragged into an infirmary, to receive only the most basic medical care. Leinth had been in and out for most of that, twitching and shouting whenever she was close to consciousness, but then they gave her something that brought her all the way back up to uncomfortably sharp awareness. Then, an interrogation. Noise, bright lights, sternness, threats - the usual. Crude. Blunt. Like all pilots, Leinth has prepared herself for this long ago. They got nothing from her.

She’d been bracing herself for torture to follow - but no. At least, not that kind of torture. Something had interrupted the proceedings. There had been a whisper in an ear, and then a strange ripple had gone through her interrogators. With fresh urgency, they’d dragged her to her feet and she’d been taken somewhere else. Somewhere down, under the hangar, far beneath the rest of the Imperial base.

It’s strange here. The walls are dark, and it’s much too quiet. None of the hustle and bustle that’s everywhere in any normal military facility. Since then, nothing. Leinth has been left to sit and rot in her uncertainty and her boredom. The solitude is maddening. There is nothing to disturb it except occasional meals given at irregular intervals through a slot in the door.

From how it leaves her feeling, Leinth is pretty sure the food is drugged. She eats most of it anyway. Tricking her into starving herself could be another way of softening her up.

The sound of locking bolts retracting into the wall heralds change. At once, Leinth is completely focused. Any information about her situation, any stimulation at all, is a sweetness she’s desperate for. When the heavy cell door swings open, she catches sight of the person holding the key. Immediately she regrets her eagerness. This is almost more disconcerting than seeing nothing at all.

The menial standing before her had once been an Imperial pilot, judging from the uniform and the wings on her lapel. Once, but no longer. There’s something unmistakably broken about her. Her uniform is wearing thin from neglect and she moves with a strange, stooped, shambling gait that just doesn’t look right on a person. She’s like an animal that’s been beaten one too many times. Leinth wishes she could see her face, if only to verify her humanity, but she can’t. The menial is wearing an awful hood that hides her face - leather, perhaps, and fashioned to look like a dog’s head.

It’s some sick shit, even for Imperials, and Leinth doesn’t have a clue what it means.

All is forgotten, though, when the menial steps aside and reveals Leinth’s visitor.

Sartha Thrace.

Her presence is electricity on Leinth’s skin, and for that reason she knows she’s real even before she pinches herself and blinks - three times, four times, five times. It’s impossible, but she’d know that face anywhere, even here, even in the dim glow of the cell’s lights. It’s the real deal. Leinth believes it with her whole heart, especially when Sartha Thrace flashes her a classic smile and reaches up to rake back her messy blonde hair. Somehow, in the flesh, she’s even more beautiful than she is on the posters.

“Leinth Aritimis?” Sartha says. “Looks like you got scooped up pretty rough, huh?”

“I… I… you…” Leinth’s mouth is struggling to catch up with her brain. There are too many questions, and the first to fall from her lips is embarrassingly juvenile. “You… know who I am?”

“Sure.” Sartha walks into the cell - ushered in, it seems - and the door closes behind her. “We fought together, right? The Dacian salient?”

Leinth nods numbly. She remembered. She actually remembered. They’d only met in passing, as two pilots amongst many, and Leinth had been nobody then. She’d assumed Sartha Thrace had taken no notice of her. She feels - and notes with humor - a faint flicker of gratitude for her captivity.

Then she blinks. She remembers her place.

“I should…” Leinth stands and salutes as best she can. “Captain!”

“Woah, easy.” Sartha laughs and waves her off. “I’ve never been a stickler, Leinth, and it doesn’t seem to make much sense here. Just call me ‘Sartha’.”

Leinth nods. She can barely believe her luck. It’s like a dream come true - circumstances notwithstanding.

“So they… they got you?” Leinth asks slowly, as Sartha walks over and sits next to her on the long bench that’s one of the cell’s only features. “We all thought you were dead.”

“Yeah.” Sartha smiles faintly. “I guess they did.”

“I saw Ancyor out there,” Leinth says. “It’s what took me down. I guess they… gods.”

Sartha doesn’t reply. She just looks down. In the dim light, Leinth can see there’s a strange look in her eye. Distant. Glassy. She’s not herself, in that moment.

Leinth can’t blame her for it. She doesn’t want to think about how she’d feel if she knew someone else had taken Genetor from her. Was using it against her people. The violation would be monstrous. She silently prays her mech was too damaged for that.

“So,” she says, hoping to bring Sartha back. “What happens now? To us. To… me.”

“Wish I could tell you.” Sartha looks up. She sounds OK again. “I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.”

“Did…” Leinth is afraid to ask, but she needs to know. “Have they done something to you? Anything I should prepare myself for?”

Sartha looks down again. “I don’t… know.”

Leinth has no words for that. She shivers. She clamps down hard on her own, faint disappointment. She tries to remind herself that Sartha Thrace is more than a hero on a poster above Leinth’s bunk. She’s been through hell. Anyone would be in pieces after months down here.

“But,” Sartha adds after a long moment, “you’ll be OK. I remember how I felt when they first put me down here. You’re strong. This is not the end. I’m still here, aren’t I? And now there’s two of us. It’ll be easier.”

Now Leinth feels ashamed of even that initial flicker of disappointment. She can hear the grit in Sartha Thrace’s voice. She can feel the warmth, and she is warmed by it. Thanks to her - thanks only to her - this chthonic hell feels bearable. She’s gonna get through this. They’re going to get through this. She can believe that, with a hero at her side. Leinth is so very grateful for Sartha’s presence.

But that begs a question.

“Thank you,” Leinth says, but frowns. “Why do you think they put us together like this?”

“Dunno,” Sartha replies. “She didn’t tell me anything.”

She? Who? The menial? Maybe, but there’s something about how Sartha said it. It’s probably not important.

“Could be they want to get us talking?” Leinth glances around. “This place could be wired for sound. Maybe they’re hoping we’ll let something slip.”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s keep it light, eh?” Leinth says. “Just in case. No secrets.”

“You got it,” Sartha agrees. “I have something important to ask you though.”

“OK.” Leinth glances around again. She decides to trust Sartha’s judgment, but just in case, she leans in so they can whisper to one another. “What?”

“Have you met Her yet?”

“No,” Leinth answers, before thinking. The question puts a nasty feeling in her gut. “Who?”

“Her.”

That one little word contains within it an ocean of feeling. Sartha quivers with excitement as she speaks it. She can barely contain herself. It’s a prayer, swelling with reverence, bursting with unnatural devotion. Leinth can sense already that Sartha is consumed by this ‘Her’. Nothing she said to Leinth before matters. Whatever - whoever - she’s talking about is utterly totalizing.

“Sartha,” Leinth says hesitantly. “What are you talking about?”

Sartha Thrace smiles, and now her smile is all wrong. It’s too serene. “Ah. You haven’t. You’d know if you had. Don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t be long.”

“Sartha…” Leinth’s stomach is plummeting. She’s panicking again. This isn’t right. “What the fuck?”

“She’ll explain everything,” Sartha assures her, and it’s like she thinks Leinth will be grateful for the assurance. “Once She talks to you, everything will make sense. You’ll make sense.”

“Stop talking like this!” Leinth pleads. “Just… just tell me what’s going on.”

Sartha pauses and restrains herself. Leinth can still see the light of energy and enthusiasm brimming within her, though. She’s just holding back because she can see Leinth isn’t ready yet.

“Handler,” she explains. Her tone is worshipful. “Oh, Leinth. You have no idea how wonderful she is!”

“Your…” Leinth feels like she’s going to throw up. “Sartha. Out there. The Ancyor. That… please. Please don’t tell me that was you.”

“It was.” Sartha tilts her head. Her eyes grow distant. “Well. In a way.” 

Leinth doesn’t know what the fuck that means, but she’s heard more than enough. She springs to her feet. Leaps away. Anger is clawing at the inside of her skin.

“Traitor!” she snarls. “How… how could you? How did they… no, no, it doesn’t fucking matter. You betrayed us all!”

Sartha looks saddened, a little. Not enough to doubt herself. “She said you’d say that. But it’s OK. She said that I don’t need to listen. I think she just wants me to help you.”

“Help me? What the…”

Leinth doesn’t want to hear that. It’s awful - that whoever this ‘She’ is, all she has to do is say one word, and Sartha shuts off? That’s inhuman.

“Help you,” Sartha repeats. “It’s… an adjustment. Being with Her. I struggled with it too, at first. At least, I think so. She says I don’t have to remember anymore. But once you accept it - once you accept Her - everything gets better. You’ll see.”

Obviously they’ve done something to her. Brainwashing. Obviously she’s a victim too. Leinth knows that - but knowing isn’t enough. She would have kissed the ground Sartha Thrace walked on. She would have given everything for her. Now she’s with them. Leinth starts to shed tears as her voice becomes a bitter, frigid growl.

“Traitor,” she spits, hoping she can inject enough venom into her voice to make it sting. “You’re a fucking traitor.”

It works. Sartha looks offended. Wounded. She looks away, like she’s trying to go distant again, but she can’t quite manage it. Even now, even after whatever the fuck they did to her, she has just a little bit too much fight for that. She needs to retort.

“You shouldn’t call me that,” Sartha says defensively. “I’m not a… I’m a hero, right? You know that. The way you looked at me, it’s… I’m just here because…”

Because? Leinth can see gears spinning in her head, but she’s going nowhere. She doesn’t know why she’s here, or what she’s doing. Not really. She looks so lost.

“I-I have to do what She says.” Sartha sounds almost pleading now. “It’s not like I’m… we’re soldiers, aren’t we? We follow orders. And Her orders are special.” It’s like she’s tricking herself. Searching for justification. She’s found one now, however thin and false. Her distress abates. “If you just met Her, you’d understand…”

Her confusion is so obvious it hurts to witness. It’s embarrassing. Sartha Thrace is meant to be a hero. She’s meant to be better than this. Contradicting feelings tear into Leinth’s mind. She wants to forgive the confused woman in front of her. Their captors must have done something truly awful to her. But that also makes her presence hard to bear. Is it a warning of what fate they have in store for Leinth? Leinth doesn’t want to think about that. Not for one second.

Sartha Thrace is meant to be better. She’s meant to be the hero on the poster. Not this. Leinth doesn’t want to see her like this.

“Just leave me alone,” Leinth says quietly. When she catches Sartha looking sadly at her, she balls her hands into fists. It pisses her off. “Get the fuck out already! Go. It’s not like you’re a prisoner here, right? I don’t want to fucking look at you.”

She laughs bitterly at that. Sartha looks sorry for both Leinth and herself. She stands.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Sartha says stiffly. “I’ll be back, though. I promise. I don’t want to leave you all on your own down here. And I really think She wants me to help you. To look after you. She’s so kind, you see.”

Leinth just stares at the wall, so Sartha walks over to the door of the cell. She bangs on it twice with her fist and the door opens. Leinth stays dead still until she leaves and the door closes again behind her. Then she buries her head in her hands and starts to sob.

Fuck.

***

After that, it all changes. The solitude and boredom, as interminable as it was, is something Leinth comes to miss. Because after Sartha’s first visit, they start torturing her.

That’s how Leinth chooses to think of it, anyway - torture. She’s not sure what else she’d call it. It’s not a kind of torture she’d ever prepared herself for, though. It’s not an interrogation. There are no questions. It’s not pain for pain’s sake, either. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt at all. They drug her with drugs that make her feel like nothing else. They hook her up to strange machines that seem to do nothing and everything. They shine bright, flickering lights into her eyes, and it’s like they’re projecting something, like an old movie on film, and only part of her mind is able to see it.

Other times, it hurts worse than Leinth could ever describe.

Either way, by the time Leinth is dragged back to the cell she feels like her skin’s been ripped inside out. She feels like one of those mech carcasses, still standing even though they’ve been burned to ash on the inside. All she can do is collapse and lie shivering on the floor of her cell, trying to piece herself back together. Sometimes, all the sensations they inflict on her seem to linger on in her body, burrowing deeper, until she can remind herself they’re not real. Sometimes, the drugs leave her with an impossible euphoria that makes Leinth feel like she can’t trust any of her own thoughts.

At those times, when Leinth is at her very lowest, Sartha Thrace comes to visit. 

The first few times, at least, Leinth finds the strength to tell her to fuck off. To her credit, she does. But Sartha keeps coming and eventually, in a moment of weakness, she relents. It was meant to be just that once, but after that Sartha always ends up staying. Leinth is not made of stone. Without Sartha, she’d never see a single soul except for the hooded menials that drag her from her cell each day, and they barely seem to count as human.

She takes infinite comfort simply in sharing her cell, for a time, with another, familiar person. Just seeing Sartha’s face, seeing her little human gestures like the way she adjusts her clothes and rakes back her hair, makes Leinth feel less crazy. Less alone and forgotten, like she’s died and gone to her own private hell.

Sartha’s good company, too. Even though she’s a traitor. She only wants to talk if Leinth does. She’s never pushy. She’ll put up with Leinth’s insults and anger. And sometimes, it even feels like Leinth is getting through to her.

She’s so beautiful, too. That helps.

After a time, it becomes a rhythm. Torture, then Sartha. The rhythm makes it easier to bear. No matter what they do to her, no matter how it feels, after a while Sartha will be there. They can talk if Leinth needs to hear her voice, or not if Leinth needs quiet. Eventually, her anger abates. There’s no point being angry at Sartha Thrace. They’re both in hell. Maybe Sartha’s just in a little deeper.

The rhythm does trouble her, though. She’s not blind to all the ways it could be used against her. Everything that’s happening to her in this place seems as regular as clockwork, but sometimes Leinth senses something behind that. A presence. A person. The rhythm’s conductor, perhaps. It might even be that mysterious ‘she’ Sartha sometimes refers to.

Or it might not. Maybe Leinth is just losing her mind.

Talking helps with that. It feels like it helps, anyway. Not that there’s much to talk about. Mostly, Leinth talks about herself. Sometimes they talk about the war, although it’s difficult to draw Sartha out on that topic. It’s like she doesn’t want to think about what’s happening, or what side she’s really on. It’s like she prefers to be confused. Leinth learns that if she presses too hard Sartha might shut down on her, or worse, leave, and so Leinth learns not to. She finds the line where she can draw out Sartha’s sense of contradiction without scaring her off.

And sometimes there are glimpses of the old Sartha. Of someone bright and brilliant, full of charisma and heroism. Leinth comes to live for those glimpses. Even now, Sartha is a kind of hero to her.

“’In a way’,” Leinth says slowly, one day, thinking back to their very first conversation. “What did that mean?”

“Huh?” Sartha, sitting just along from her in the cell, turns her head.

“When I asked you about piloting Ancyor,” Leinth presses. “You said it was you - ‘in a way’. Tell me what that means.”

Sartha looks away. “I was… nothing. It was me.”

“Bullshit.” Leinth has learned what it looks like when Sartha doesn’t want to think about something. “Tell me. Stop hiding something.”

Now Sartha sighs. “I’m not… hiding. You just wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

It’s possible she’s pushing too hard, but the question has been burning inside Leinth. After a short time, Sartha sighs.

“It’s like… it’s like there’s someone else in my head,” she says slowly. Then, realizing how that sounds: “I mean, it’s still me. Obviously. But sometimes I can… let them take over. When She wants me to.”

Leinth doesn’t need to say anything. Her expression does all the talking. Sartha gets defensive.

“I-It’s not how it sounds,” Sartha insists. “I’m just not explaining it well. It’s like… it’s like how, sometimes, in the heat of battle, you just go on autopilot. You know that feeling, right?”

Leinth nods.

“It’s just… one step further than that.” She’s grasping and she knows it. Leinth can tell. “It’s better this way. A clearer separation.” Sartha taps her foot restlessly. “I wish She was here. If She explained it to you, you’d understand perfectly.”

“Why do you need to be separated?” Leinth argues back. “I don’t. I want to be me. When I’m piloting. When I’m fighting. I want to know what I’m fighting for. Don’t you?”

“I…” Sartha taps her foot faster. Agitated. “N-no. No, it gets distracting. Better to keep it separate. Better to focus. Better to ignore everything, except orders. Her orders. She says I don’t need to think, and the other me makes it easier. It’s better this way!”

By the end, she’s almost shouting. It’s the first time Sartha’s seen her get so worked up. She wants to push further, but she can sense this is the limit - for now, at least. Maybe Sartha’s mistress doesn’t realize how fragile she is. Maybe Leinth is starting to figure out where the cracks are.

But she’ll be smart about it. Rhythms go both ways. Now she can be the one to provide comfort. She slides along the bench and rests her arm across Sartha’s shoulder. She squeezes her. Sartha relaxes. She welcomes the touch.

“You know,” Leinth says slowly, after a minute or more has passed, “that it wasn’t always like this, right?”

“Yeah.” Sartha’s voice is empty.

“And…” Leinth takes a deep breath. “And you know it’s not like this for most people, don’t you? You know it’s not right.”

Sartha plants her head in her hands. She might be crying. Then slowly, finally, she nods.

***

Time passes. It goes on. It gets worse. Whatever they’re doing to Leinth, it’s getting more intense. Not more painful - no, that would be preferable. Increasingly, instead of agonizing memories that reverberate yet more pain, Leinth is left with no memories at all. She’s left without clarity. Often for hours, even after she’s returned to her cell. Blackouts. Lost time. It’s like her mind, her life, is being packed into smaller and smaller boxes. Each day, less space remains. Less of her is able to survive. The rest is all an endless, wandering fog. Each memory and each clear thought becomes a hard-fought battle.

It’s a war. And Leinth is losing this war too.

The pilot has no defenses against this. She knows how to be strong, but strength isn’t enough. Leinth’s emotions are starting to fray. She screams. She wails. She sobs. She bangs her fists on the cell walls until her skin breaks.

Leinth can’t even count the hours or the days. She can’t tell if she’s putting up a good fight. What haunts her more than anything is that all of this could have been no more than a couple of weeks. What if she’s falling apart like this in just two weeks.

It brings her to despair. Only Sartha Thrace can comfort her.

Leinth is lying across her lap, resting her head in the softness and warmth of her former hero. It’s the only soft thing she ever gets to touch. When the inside of her own head feels like a hive of bees or a yawning abyss, she can lose herself in the slightly scratchy texture of Sartha’s clothes. She can become something that only exists in the present tense, without her past to grasp at and her future to dread.

She can’t remember when she lost enough of her pride to accept this embrace, from a woman she’s called a traitor. But Leinth is glad she did. Without this, she couldn’t make it. Her very worst fear is that one day, Sartha will simply stop appearing at the door of her cell. She just has to pray they won’t start using that against her.

Sometimes they talk. Not often, though. What’s there to talk about? Nothing changes down here. Leinth tries to keep working Sartha, though. Putting her fingers in those cracks. Pulling them apart. She thinks it's working - not that she trusts herself to judge. But Sartha talks less about ‘Her’. She seems more uncomfortable, whenever Leinth questions. That’s something, right? That’s hope?

None of that today, though. Leinth isn’t together enough for it. All she can do is rest her head in Sartha’s lap and sob.

She tries to sob silently and cover the shaking motions she makes when her breath catches awkwardly in her throat. Maybe she doesn’t want to cry so nakedly in front of an enemy. Maybe she doesn’t want to cry so nakedly in front of her hero. Either way, she keeps her face turned away and hopes Sartha can’t quite see her in the dark.

Then it strikes her: of course she can. It’s dim in here, but not pitch black. And Sartha’s head is right above her. Of course she can see.

Leinth pulls her arms and legs in tighter. She tucks in her head. “Sorry,” she says quietly.

Mercifully, Sartha doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even make some condescending, cooing little noise. She just, very gently, reaches down and starts to stroke Leinth’s hair.

Leinth closes her eyes. At first in shame, but slowly she relaxes. Sartha’s touch is startlingly pleasant. It feels like an angel’s touch. Suddenly, Leinth is struck with a kind of vision.

She imagines that it’s the Sartha Thrace from the poster, sitting above her, stroking her hair. Sartha Thrace as she once was. Always victorious. Always right. Resplendent in her heroism. Her stirring beauty shining like the sun. Smiling a cocksure smile that lets everyone with her know that it’s going to be OK.

The fantasy is a little childish, she guesses. But she needs it right now. Leinth gives herself over to the pleasant daydream. It makes her feel like it’s going to be OK.

Eventually, after a long while, she manages to make herself still. She stops crying. She’s shed enough tears for the day. But there’s no escaping the knowledge that tomorrow will be the same. Fresh torments. And once they’re over, even less of her will remain.

“Sartha,” Leinth says. Her voice is shaky and hoarse. “I’m not going to make it in here. I’m going to end up like you. Or worse.”

There’s a long pause. Then: “I know.”

Leinth summons up her courage. “Will you help me escape?”

A longer pause. Then:

“Yeah.”

***

They make a plan, that night. It’s a simple one. No time for refinements. Leinth is desperate to get out and, frankly, she can’t trust Sartha to keep her word.

From what she’s said, simple should be good enough. This part of the base - the ‘kennels’, Sartha calls them - is large, but has only a small contingent of those dog-hooded menials. Sartha can send them away once the cell door is unlocked, and then she can lead Leinth to freedom. They shouldn’t encounter anyone else on their way to the hangar. All Leinth has to do is steal an Imperial mech and run like hell.

It sounds a little too good to be true. But what choice does Leinth have but to put her faith in Sartha, and hope she has enough of her own strength left to overcome any unexpected challenges?

The real sticking point is Sartha herself. She says all this like she’s not coming. Leinth senses that she shouldn’t ask. Now more than ever, she can’t afford to push Sartha to breaking point. She can see, plain as day, all the fear and doubt inside the captured hero. For all her reputation, she’s like an abused puppy now. She isn’t just thinking running away will earn her another kick. She’s thinking that running away will mean she’s nothing at all.

Leinth wants to prove her wrong. She’s nursing a hope that, at the very last moment, when they’re standing at the threshold, Sartha will choose to take her hand. They have a connection, as pilots and fellow prisoners. Whatever Sartha’s done, she can still be redeemed. She can be whole again. A hero once more.

And Leinth can be the one to take her back into the light. It feels like fate, in a way. Maybe that’s why her chest is filling with tentative confidence.

The moment comes. Leinth hears the lock on her cell door disengage. There’s a pause - longer than usual - before it opens. Sartha is standing in the doorway. No one’s behind her. Sartha steps back, beckoning Leinth. Leinth’s heart starts to race. It’s happening. It’s real.

“This way,” Sartha says.

They start moving quickly, not quite running for fear that their feet pounding the concrete will alert something or someone. It’s just as dark out of Leinth’s cell as it is inside it, and to her the dark corridors and passageways Sartha is leading her through are utterly indistinguishable. She’s tried mapping the place based on what she sees when the menials drag her out each day, but no luck. There’s too little light, and their work leaves her far, far too disoriented.

Sartha appears to know them intimately, though. She leads and Leinth follows, and eventually she senses that they are sloping upward. It takes longer than she’d hoped, though. How big is this part of the base? Is this sprawling complex just for prisoners like her and Sartha? There’s no sense to it than she can discern.

She can puzzle that out later, though. Now she just needs to escape.

They round a corner and Leinth almost runs headfirst into Sartha’s back. She’s stopped. Leinth can immediately see why. For the first time, they can see light - not the light of day, but the bright, harsh light of the mech hangar, and that’s close enough. It’s still distant and faint but it’s closer than had Leinth dared hope for.

But that’s not why Sartha froze. There’s something else. Someone standing between them and freedom. Not one of the menials. Leinth immediately knows who this is.

It’s Her.

Sartha’s handler. The woman she seems utterly in awe of. There’s no one else it could be. She’s wearing a strange kind of uniform - black leathers and a dark cap, with a long coat that lends her a formidable silhouette. Hair is platinum, almost white, as cold as her eyes. She wears a thin smile as she stares down the escapees.

This is bad. Leinth knows that right away. But she’s already running the numbers. This woman’s no bigger than she is. Even if Sartha freezes up, which seems likely, it’s a fair fight. Leinth can win those.

Sartha Thrace does something much worse than freezing up.

“Well done, Sartha,” the handler says. She gestures down. “Now. Heel.”

Leinth is frozen in horror as Sartha rushes across to the handler’s side and kneels.

Her obedience isn’t the worst part, much as Leinth wishes it was. The worst part is how bursting with energy Sartha is. With certainty. There’s no hint of doubt or shame or guilt in her demeanor. She’s rushing forward. Practically wagging her tail. So eager it’s embarrassing.

If she was going to betray Leinth again, the least she could have done was hesitate.

“Good girl,” the handler says as Sartha throws herself at her feet. She reaches down and blesses her head with a couple of fond pats. Leinth is grateful she can’t see the look on Sartha’s face. She’s sure it would break her heart. “Hello, Leinth Aritimis.”

Leinth grits her teeth. This is as bad as it gets. She needs to get her head into gear. This is combat. She should run. But she needs to ask the question.

“What did you do to her?”

Handler takes her time. She tilts her head. Considering, perhaps, how to answer. "I gave her a gift,” she says. “The kind of gift that wins anybody over. I made her perfectly happy.”

Anger swelled in Leinth’s bosom. “You’re sick.”

The slight smile on the handler’s face is maddening. “Do you think so? I believe I’d like to give you the same gift, Leinth.”

That makes her skin crawl. “She’s not happy, you piece of shit.”

“Doesn’t she look happy to you?” the handler replies. She extends her palm, and Sartha stretches her neck to rest her chin on her hand. There’s nothing more Leinth wants than to rush over and break the handler’s jaw. But who knows how Sartha would react to that?

“I’ve seen what she’s like,” Leinth growls. “It’s no gift. She’s suffering. She’s in anguish. I’ve seen it. Half the time, she’s falling apart!”

“Indeed,” the handler muses. “She struggles without me, doesn’t she? But she put up with it so bravely. I’m so proud of her.”

The emotion dripping from her lips is a sickening mixture of mocking condescension and genuine affection. Leinth has never heard anything like it.

“Sir,” Sartha pipes up. She has eyes only for her handler and she seems nervous about speaking, but excitement at the praise has overcome her. “May I have it back?”

The handler smiles down benevolently at her. She’s so proud. “Of course you can, Sartha.”

She reaches into one of her coat pockets and retrieves something - a small, elongated, metal cage with a pair of leather straps mounted to it.

A muzzle.

Sartha presents herself and keeps dead still as her handler bends down and affixes it to her face, taking care to brush her hair out of the way and make sure the straps are exactly as tight as they need to be. It’s as loving as a kiss. As twisted as a curse.

“Up,” the handler says once she’s done.

Sartha rises to her feet. She turns to look at Leinth but barely seems to register her presence. The muzzle jutting out of her face is grotesque. Leinth can’t help but notice how serene she is now. Sartha’s face is clear of doubt, wracked by none of the confusion that had plagued her whenever they’d spoken in Leinth’s cell.

Was it an act? Or does the handler’s presence simply have this much sway over her?

Which is worse?

Leinth swears to herself and spits on the ground. Fuck this. Fuck whatever this is. She’s not going to fall to pieces over this. She’s not going to stand here and stare and let this woman play games with her head. She’s getting out of here.

“See you in hell, freak,” she snarls, and breaks into a sprint.

All she needs to do is put the handler down and run. Leinth can figure the rest out on her own. Sartha isn’t going to help her. Not now.

She makes it a few paces before the handler reacts. She doesn’t panic, though, or raise her arms to defend herself. She just says something to Sartha in a firm, clear voice.

“Off The Leash.”

The next thing Leinth knows, she’s on the ground. It’s just like when she got laid out by Ancyor. Something is on top of her. Something panting and violent and angry. It’s Sartha.

Except it isn’t.

Nobody could go from zero to sixty that fast. Nobody. No person. But Sartha doesn’t really count as one of those anymore. She’s staring down at Leinth with a look of impossible, bestial hate, eyes as furious as they are shallow. Her hackles are raised and her back is arched, and her lips are drawn back to expose snarling teeth. There’s a sound coming from the back of her throat; a low, rumbling growl, like the rolling of thunder. It’s a sound that has no business coming from a human.

This is her. The other self Sartha was talking about before. Leinth knows it. Not a person. Just a honed instrument of her handler’s violent will.

A hound.

"Easy, Hound,” the handler says. “I don’t want her harmed.”

Hound eases off - but only just. The hate burning in her eyes as she looks at Leinth is so singular. It’s utterly totalizing. Leinth tried to desecrate her goddess. That’s all there is to it. The depth of her devotion is so unnatural it makes Leinth’s skin crawl.

The handler moves to stand over her, looking down at her. “You will not escape from here,” she pronounces. “You will never leave this place again. Not unless I permit it. Understand?”

Her manner demands an answer. Leinth doesn’t have one, not even a foul spit of defiance. She’s just trying not to fall to pieces. She’s cursing herself for her optimism. For not seeing the signs. She’s trying not to tear up too, because that would just be too pathetic. She doesn’t want to give this woman the satisfaction. But for that strength, she needs hope. And there’s precious little to hope for, now.

Only Sartha.

There has to be something left of her, right? You can’t just take a human being and take them apart and put them back together like this. Right? Right? You can’t just make a person this small.

There’s something left. Leinth just needs to get through to her.

“Please,” she mouths silently at the hound. She tries to meet her gaze, hard as it is. So much hate, in eyes that had become so familiar. Her muzzle disfigures her. It’s hard to look past that and see the face of a hero. But Leinth is determined to try.

“You have such faith in her.” The handler’s lips curl. “Don’t you see? She’s mine now.”

“No!” Leinth cries, although her voice is weak. “She… she wants to leave with me. She knows this is wrong. She knows you’re her enemy. I saw it.”

The handler arches an eyebrow. “Hound. Up.”

Hound rises to her feet instantly, offering Leinth one last warning growl. Leinth knows better than to try to stand.

“Take off your jacket,” the handler instructs.

Again, Hound obeys without thought. She discards the military jacket she was once so proud of like it’s nothing. Underneath she’s wearing a simple, khaki tank top. The handler lifts the hem to Hound’s chest and uses her other hand to fondly touch the pilot’s abs, feeling at their definition. She’s enjoying them - her smirk makes no secret of that - but this is all for Leinth’s benefit. She’s trying to piss Leinth off. Showing her that only she gets to touch Sartha Thrace this way.

It’s working.

Then the handler makes her hand into a fist and punches Hound in the gut.

She may not be a pilot, but she’s a military woman and her form is good. And more to the point, Hound makes no attempt to defend herself. The blow leaves her bent double, retching and heaving, before her legs give way and she sinks to her knees. She looks like she’s in agony.

Leinth is sure that Sartha Thrace - Hound - whatever - is quick enough to have sensed the blow coming. But she didn’t brace herself. Didn’t even tense her muscles or expel the air from her lungs.

What the fuck kind of control is that? Control on an instinctive level. In her nerves, her muscles, her reflexes.

And that’s not the end. After watching Hound contort and groan for a few moments, the handler lowers the offending fist to Hound’s lips and pushes her muzzle aside.

Hound kisses it.

The kiss is almost innocent. It’s like a knight kissing her liege’s ring. Knowing it's the hand that just left a mean bruise on Hound’s stomach makes it twisted. It gets worse when the handler extends her fingers and uses them to pry Hound’s lips apart, running her fingertips over her teeth, pinching her tongue, smearing drool across her face.

Depraved. There’s no other word for it.

“Do you still think she wants to leave?” the handler asks as she pulls back and fixes Hound’s muzzle.

“Yes, damn it!” Leinth’s wishes her voice sounded firmer. “You’ve done something to her. That… thing is not Sartha Thrace. It’s just something you put in her head. It’s not her.”

“Would it help to hear it from her own lips?” the handler asks. “I’m trying to help you see the truth of her, Leinth. She doesn’t deserve your faith.” She turns to Hound. “On The Leash.”

Light returns to her eyes - a semblance of it, at least, but smothered by the handler’s presence. It’s Sartha again. The muzzle, though, still ruins her face.

“Sartha,” the handler says. Sartha’s ears prick up, grateful merely for the attention. “Do you want to leave me?”

“No!”

The word bursts from her lips, an explosion, before she can catch herself and add the appropriate ‘sir’. Sartha is suddenly desperate. Panicked, far more so than she’d ever been with Leinth in her cell. Her eyes register a wounded confusion.

Is she being abandoned? What did she do wrong?

“No, sir!” Sartha repeats. Her eyes flick and flit manically. She’s on the brink of collapse. “P-please…”

“Don’t worry.” The handler pets her head again. “You don’t have to leave, Sartha.”

All at once, the hero relaxes. Shoulders sink, muscles release all their tension. Her face slumps into a glowing smile. This is all she needs. God is in her heaven; all is right with the world.

And Leinth’s faint hopes grow fainter still.

“That’s… not…” She feels the need to set this to right, somehow. To explain it away. To make an excuse. “You’re in her head! You have been for months, you sick freak. Whatever fucking game you’re playing with her doesn’t change the fact that she’s still Sartha Thrace!”

“Hmm.” The handler looks impressed, or something like it. “You believe in her so very much. More than I’d expected.”

Leinth would be proud. She takes faith as a mark of strength. For rebels like her, faith in one other is indispensable. She would be proud, if not for how pleased the handler seemed.

“Where does that come from, I wonder?” the handler muses. “Loyalty and admiration so fervent it persists in defiance of reality itself. You can understand, I’m sure, why I might take a professional interest.”

Leinth spits. She’s sure this woman knows absolutely nothing about loyalty. Less than nothing.

“The way you look at her is fascinating,” the handler goes on. She’s bending down a little, peering at the pilot. “Respect. Faith. But other things, too. Envy? That’s normal, between pilots. Who wouldn’t envy my hound?”

At that, Leinth just snorts. It’s nothing she hasn’t thought about before. ‘Do I want to be her friend, or do I just want to be her?’ She’s at peace with it.

“And,” the handler adds. “Lust. You want her.”

“W-what?” Leinth feels something pull tight in her chest, even as she laughs and scoffs. “Don’t be stupid.”

“You do,” the handler decides. She says it so academically. Like she’s putting together a puzzle. Like she’s dissecting a frog. “Why deny it? We know your inclinations. She’s attractive, isn’t she?”

“I didn’t mean…” Leinth glances at Sartha. She has eyes only for her handler, even now, but surely she can hear both of them. “Of course, but-“

“The way you look at her is obvious,” the handler interrupts. She glances at Sartha. “It’s obvious to her, too.”

Leinth’s eyes flash wide. That’s… no. No. She’s lying. The handler is messing with her, that much is obvious. And Leinth was always so careful. She never let those feelings reach her face.

Except…

She can’t be quite so confident, can she? Trying to sort through her own memories of her captivity is like trying to grasp at water. At times, she was all but delirious from the pain and the drugs. Did she let something slip? Did something filthy reveal itself in her gaze?

Leinth looks to Sartha, hoping for confirmation. She’s unreadable. She’s in a blissful daze, shining with gladness at the reunion with her handler and her muzzle.

“Tell me, Leinth,” the handler says. “That poster, above your bunk. Did you ever look at it while you touched yourself?”

Leinth recoils like she’s been struck. Cold washes over her, turning all the hairs along her spine into little icicles. “How do you know about that?”

“Our methods are very effective for extracting information,” the handler tells her. “Did you think that my staff were merely amusing themselves?”

Panic. More panic. Leinth scrambles away across the concrete floor. Suddenly the handler’s eyes on her skin are unbearable. What else might she know? Leinth tries to reach back into memory and find pieces of herself. She finds a black hole. She can’t remember spilling any secrets - but clearly she has.

Who has she betrayed? Please let it only be herself. Please let it not be anyone else.

“I think I can take that as confirmation,” the handler says. “Not that I needed any. You want her.” Her smile widens. “You could have her, you know.”

Leinth goes very still. “What?”

“Is that what would make you happy, I wonder?” The handler reaches out to Sartha again; a light touch across her torso, where a bruise is already beginning to rise. “All I’d need to do is say the word.”

“No! Fuck - no.” Leinth’s stomach churns at the suggestion. “I would never… fuck, she would never.”

“Not at all.” The handler’s confidence is supreme. “If I ordered you to, you’d give yourself to Leinth. Wouldn’t you, Sartha.”

“Yes, sir.”

She doesn’t hesitate before answering, of course. Leinth is just about prepared for that, but she isn’t prepared at all for how plainly eager Sartha is. She’s looking at her handler with hope in her eyes. She wants her handler to say the word. She wants to be given a chance to obey.

No matter what.

Leinth can’t tell if it’s too hot or too cold now. She starts to clamber to her feet, leaning heavily on the nearby wall for support. She feels dizzy. She feels like up is down and down is up. Before she knows it, the handler is right there, merely a kiss away, her eyes inescapable.

“Do you want her, Leinth?” she asks, voice barely a whisper, like what she proposes could be a secret, safely told. “Do you want her body?” She puts her lips against Leinth’s skin. “Do you want her to suck your cock?”

The handler is a pillar of ice, but somehow, just for that one, simple question, she makes her voice impossibly sinful and tempting, like warm syrup being poured into Leinth’s ear. It sticks to her. It makes Leinth’s body stir. Leinth recoils violently, thrown into panic, trying to flee - but she’s already against the wall, there’s nowhere to go.

She can’t let it show. She can’t. But it’s too late, of course.

Disgusting. She’s disgusting. The handler’s disgusting. Hound is disgusting. This is all disgusting.

“You could go down on her too, of course,” the handler adds. “If that’s more to your taste. But I think… yes. This is what you want. Sartha Thrace, on her knees, before you. Warm. Eager. Welcoming.”

“N-no!”

Leinth’s voice trembles. She squeezes her eyes shut. Her fantasies are turning against her and all she can do is turn inward, trying to obliterate them with white-hot shame.

“Well, let’s see.” The handler is ice again as she steps back and beckons Sartha forward. “Here, Sartha. Come. Kneel. Remove your muzzle. Open your mouth.”

“Yes, sir!”

Leinth can hear the eagerness of Sartha’s obedience as she rushes and falls, and briefly fumbles with the strap of her muzzle. Her mind’s eye does the rest, and the picture it paints makes her shiver.

“Look,” the handler commands, and the sheer force of will in her voice is irresistible. “Open your eyes.”

Leinth holds firm for a few moments but it only takes one lapse. One moment of weakness - or perhaps, she fears, of curiosity.  Once her lids part, there’s no going back. She’s transfixed. Sartha Thrace is kneeling before her. Her mouth is open. Waiting. She is ready to receive. There’s a warm smile on her face - it’s for her handler, of course, but it could so easily be for Leinth. It would be so easy to pretend. A fantasy, a wet dream, could never be so vivid and so real.

If it wasn’t already too late to pretend, it is now. Leinth is hard. Her clothes aren’t tight, but it’s still obvious.

“There.” The handler says. She’s not smug, just sure. She doesn’t need to be smug. She knew exactly what was going to happen. “Now, Leinth. Should I say the word?”

Leinth shakes her head in mute horror. If she answered ‘yes’, if she even considered it, she’d become something unforgivable.

“Why not?” The handler asks. “You want to. She wants to.”

“She- ah!”

The handler interrupts her by resting her hand on the back of Sartha’s face and pushing her forward until Sartha’s face is pressed against Leinth’s front. The touch is sparks to dry kindling. Leinth twitches awkwardly, trying to shrink back, but there’s nowhere to go and the handler won’t let her.

Sartha, sensing her handler’s intent, starts rubbing and nuzzling, eager, happy to be of use, and that makes it even worse.

“S-she,” Leinth stammers, struggling to keep the thread of her reason taut. “She doesn’t! She’s… you made her like this! It’s your fault! She doesn’t - Sartha Thrace would never - want this.”

“That doesn’t matter.” The handler shuts her down brutally. “Who knows why anyone wants what they want? It doesn’t matter. Look at the woman in front of you.” She turns to Sartha. “Sartha, would you like to clean my boot?”

“Yes, sir!”

Leinth winces. More of that bubbling, twisted eagerness. Each time is another knife.

“Then do so.”

She extends a foot forward pointedly. Again, there’s no hesitation. Sartha bends forward, prostrate, as if in prayer, and puts her lips to the tip of the handler’s long, tall, black, leather boots and begins to kiss. The wet licking sounds that follow stroke Leinth’s imagination.

Leinth wishes she could look away. But Sartha Thrace’s fall is transfixing. It’s a solar eclipse. She’ll take a punch and thank her handler for it. She’ll kiss her boot like it’s a lover. She’ll make herself a whore at her handler’s command. Is there anything she wouldn’t do for that woman? Any limit?

The question provokes an uncomfortable curiosity.

“That will do, Sartha,” the handler says, after several long seconds. “Stand.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sartha’s voice is breathy with excitement. When she stands, Leinth can see that the handler’s boot is shiny with her spit. She keeps staring.

“Look at her, Leinth,” the handler chides. “Not at my boot. Look at her.”

Leinth doesn’t. She doesn’t want to. The handler doesn’t fight her on it. She has other tactics.

“Sartha,” she says. “Kiss her.”

“Hu-“

Leinth can barely breathe before Sartha, her hero, is pressing against her. Their lips meet. Sartha is insistent, and Leinth doesn’t have the strength to push her away. The kiss isn’t chaste or robotic or forced. Sartha sinks into it, willingly embracing her duty. She’s passionate. Eager. After a moment, Leinth sinks too. The fantasy is too nice, even though there’s one unmistakable difference between this and her fond daydreams.

Sartha’s lips taste like leather and boot polish.

Sartha is the one who pulls away in the end, which is its own kind of humiliation. In the moments after the kiss, with her face inches from Leinth’s, she looks breathy. Flushed. It’s enough to make Leinth pine.

“Do you see it yet?” The handler’s voice breaks the moment. It’s as final as a sunset. “She’s not your Sartha Thrace. Not anymore. So why not enjoy her, if it pleases you?” Her smile ticks upwards. “Many have.”

A spike of anger brings with it a kind of clarity. This is wrong. It’s not even a fantasy anymore. Whatever daydreams and intimate thoughts Leinth has succumbed to, here and there, she never wanted this for Sartha. Never.

Many have.

It makes Leinth shudder. This isn’t a wet dream. This isn’t her long-treasured fantasy. This is just… cheap. Cheap titillation. It’s unworthy of her. It’s even more unworthy of Sartha Thrace.

“No!” Leinth cries. She finds her voice for the first time in what feels like an age, and the force in her denial drives Sartha back an uncertain step. The handler looks at her - surprised, perhaps, although more curious than afraid.

“No?” she asks.

“Just go fuck yourself already!” Leinth screams. It feels good to scream. “You can throw me back in the damn cell, but you’re not gonna get me to… to…” She just looks at Sartha. “I don’t know how you got so twisted that you get off on this sick shit, but I’m better than that. She is better than that.”

“She is not.” The handler says it with a knowing smile, like she’s the one who has grasped Sartha’s soul in her hands, and that pisses Leinth off even more.

“Yes she is!” Leinth insists. “She’s Sartha god damn Thrace! She’s a hero. She’s the hero. You can change a lot of things but you can’t change that!”

It feels good to say it to her face. Everything’s fucked up right now, but not Leinth’s faith in Sartha. She’s placing that beyond reach. Her faith is the midday sun, boiling away the morning fog. If nothing else, she can make sure the handler goes to her grave knowing that she was never able to tarnish it.

“There will always be people out there - rebels out there - fighting because they were inspired by her.” Leinth is finding her theme and her voice. “Her face and her name are on recruitment posters all over the planet. People will always believe in her. I will always believe in her. No matter what you make her say or do, people will always know: it’s not real. It’s not her. The real Sartha Thrace was always a hero.”

For the first time, the handler is silent. Her silence is intoxicating. Seeing her, of all people, seemingly lost for words is almost as rewarding as freedom itself. It’s tempting to keep going, to rub her face in it, but there’s something far more important at stake. Leinth turns, again, to Sartha. She steps forward and clasps her hero by her shoulders, pulling her close.

“And you,” Leinth says. “Listen to me. You will always be a hero. I know that’s not getting through to you right now because of how badly they’ve fucked with your head. But it’s true. We spent a lot of time talking down in that cell. It wasn’t all fake. You can’t tell me that. You’re still in there, somewhere. And one day, you’re gonna get out. You’re gonna escape. You’re gonna find your way back to yourself. It’ll be hard, it’ll be painful, but I know you’ll do it, because that’s what a hero does. And when that day comes, you’ll… you’ll…”

She trails off. There’s something in Sartha’s eyes. She’s listening to her now. Leinth’s words have made it through. The look dawning on her face is real, and that’s exactly what makes it so devastating.

Sartha Thrace looks pained.

It’s a bone-deep, weary kind of pain. Suddenly she doesn’t look like a captured hero or a brainwashed hound. She just looks tired. Like she’s a woman who’s been ground down and chewed up by the world. And now, just by talking, Leinth has become one of the teeth. She’s hurting her. Sartha just wants her to stop.

Leinth can’t go on. She didn’t think it would be like this. In the face of this mysterious wound in Sartha, she’s powerless.

But now, of course, the handler has something to say.

“There’s a chink in the armor of every single human being.” The handler speaks slowly. She wants every word to sink in. “At least one. And if you pry it open, you find a void. If you can fill that void, then they are yours. Right down to their soul. She is the chink in your armor.”

Leinth closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to hear this. She doesn’t want to know that all this, all her defiance, was just another part of this woman’s dance.

“You have such faith in her,” the handler says. “You think it makes you strong. It just makes you brittle. You can think you can handle seeing her broken and dirtied and disappointing. Perhaps. But you cannot handle the real truth of Sartha Thrace.”

It’s that pain. It has to be. Leinth wants to close her heart off to it. To make a hated enemy of Sartha in her head. Then she wouldn’t need to care. She can’t do it, of course.

“The chink in Sartha’s armor,” the handler tells her, “was you.”

Leinth opens her eyes in disbelief.

“Not just you, of course,” the handler adds. “Not you personally. But all of you who call her a hero and worship the ground she walks on. All that faith. All those expectations. Did you think she could carry that much weight? That she didn’t notice? That it didn’t drag her down with every step? She was tired of it, Leinth. Deep in her soul, she was tired of it. She wanted to be free of it. She would never have admitted it out loud, of course. But she knew it all the same. And when I offered her freedom, something deep inside her reached out and took it. That is how I made her mine.”

Leinth is frozen. She never thought about it. Not once. To her, Sartha was always a woman on a poster. Why didn’t she ever…

“I should thank you, shouldn’t I?” The handler says it without mirth. “For helping to wear her down. For helping to deliver her into my arms. And after that little speech, I think she’s more mine than she’s ever been.”

Sometimes, when Leinth pilots Genetor, she takes some pretty fucking big hits. It’s part of the job, after all. Genetor was built for it. It’s the kind of machine that was designed to stare down an avalanche and dare the mountain the do its worst. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel like shit, though. It doesn’t matter how heavily built a machine is. When you get hit by heavy ordnance, the force has to go somewhere. It goes through you. And the noise. It’s deafening, in the most literal sense. After some battles, Leinth can’t hear properly for hours afterward. There’s nothing in her ears but a skull-splitting mosquito whine of complaint.

Even that doesn’t compare to how bad her head is ringing now.

It was her fault?

She looks at Sartha once again. That’s the only thing that can save her now. Sartha telling her that it’s a lie. That she never felt that way. That she was OK with it. But Sartha avoids her gaze, and her shame speaks louder than any words.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? She’s still just looking to Sartha to save her.

“A hero, a martyr, or a traitor,” the handler muses. “Those are the only fates you left her with. No wonder it was so easy to make her a hound instead.”

Leinth gets it now. There are no heroes down here. Not a one.

“Sartha,” the handler says once she’s sure it’s all sunk in. She knows the signs. The slumped shoulders. The sagging, lightless eyes. “Off The Leash. You can take Leinth to my room now. She’s ready for my personal attention.”

It’s a mercy to be faced with Hound instead of Sartha. Hound knows no shame, and no judgment either. Hound doesn’t hesitate. She just puts a hand on Leinth’s shoulder and starts guiding her, unresisting, away from the light and deeper into the catacombs beneath the base.

---

I would like to express my gratitude for the generosity of all those who support me on Patreon, and to give a special thanks to the following patrons in particular for their exceptional support:

Artemis, Chloe, J, Grillfan65, The Secret Subject, Morriel, Dex, orangesya, Red, dmtph, Queenfisher, MegatronTarantulas, NewtypeWoman, WhyamIhere, Vanessa, Madeline, BTYOR, Sarah, Mattilda, Emily Queen of sloths, ntad, The Flock, Shadows exile, Jackson, Abigail, Hypnogirl_Stephanie_, Jade, mintyasleep, John, ZephanyZephZeph, Michael, Be_Be, Tasteful Ardour, Chris, Dennis, paxDulcetGirl, Full Blown Marxism, Morder, S, Myles_EXVS, Brendon, Drone 8315, Jack the Monkey, Jim, Erin, HannahSolaria, Christopher, hellenberg, Kay, Miss_Praxis, Violet, Noct, Charlotte, Faun, BrinnShea, B, Foridin, Jennifer, EepyTimeTea, Slifer274, Roxxie, Phoenix, Ivy, Jim, Sebastian, Joseph, Yaoups, Thomas, Liz, Ali, naivetynkohan, Ada, ds2coffin, Basic dev, SuperJellyFrogEx, night, Katie, Lily, spyrocyndersam13, zzzz, Mal, DarthZipper, Jose, Bouncyrou, Anonymous, ravenfan, Bacon Man, Pluto

[raycatz]

I wish so much that I could fully enjoy totk but I am struggling so much. Idk why some of the decisions for the game are the way they are. I can't help but be critical given how important the series and botw are to me.

I feel like the game is struggling to have its own identity. I feel like some creature has wormed its way into botw's skin and is wearing it poorly.

(So far I've played through the Gerudo and Rito story quests. What I've written here though is mostly about the world and direction. I just need to get some of these thoughts out. There are spoilers.)

The three main criticisms people had with botw were the story, weapon durability, and dungeons- and man so far in totk these things have only been worse. (The boss fights are incredible though)

The framerate drops whenever I use ultrahand, and combined with my left joycon drifting it makes trying to use the new mechanic difficult to the point that I will avoid it to do something else.

Some of the game does feel like mashed up dlc ideas. I would have preferred them to be dlc even. If the Zelda devs wanted to tell this story or make a game with these mechanics I wish they would have made an entirely new game instead of using botw.

So far totk has no through-lines between itself and botw. No one has mentioned the Champions, only a single npc has talked about the Calamity, no one has mentioned Calamity Ganon or the divine beasts Link calmed, and only a few people recognize Link himself. The champion successors I've met haven't spoken of the Champions or their divine beasts which is strange given how they spoke of them in botw, and at most have only referred to Link having been there in the past as, "when you helped us" without any specifics as to what. I've done all the side quests in botw and to have the people I helped call Link a stranger is saddening. It's even more pronounced in Hateno. I bought a house there. I helped its people. And the house no longer has Link's name by the door and Hateno's people remark at how Link is a new face in town. Didn't I live there? Given how some of the kids have grown it's probably been around 4 years since botw. Where has Link been in that time for the people to forget him? In Kakariko Cottla says she can't talk to me because she isn't supposed to talk with strangers. We've played tag together. I cooked meals with her sister. It's sad. In botw we spent the whole time collecting Link's memories and growing attached to the land only to have the land forget us. I feel like it's a disgrace to all of the time and joy players put in and found in botw, and to botw's story- to have none of that matter.

What happened to the Divine Beasts and the Sheikah shrines and the slate? Further, some important npcs from botw are just gone without explanation.

If the events of botw are so irrelevant then why use the same world and characters? I understand it's a way to save time and resources but this game took 6 years to make past botw. I would have preferred a new world and princess/hero entirely so I could go into it as a fresh experience. Instead, it feels like what made botw important was swept away, and the map and characters are only being used as an empty husk, like setpieces. Majora's Mask being a sequel with reused assets worked because in Termina there was no reason for anyone to know Link, and him traveling to find Navi made sense, and the look-alike characters are different people. In botw, there is no reason for no one to recognize Link or his achievements. He is the Hero of Hyrule for that world and it's people. He freed the divine beasts and put an end to the multiple local disasters they were causing, yet none of that is acknowledged and it sticks out like a sore. (I'm really really hoping that Sidon talks about Mipha and the constant rain caused by Vah Ruta because how could he not? That's his sister! Yunobo saw Daruk's spirit in botw so I'm hoping he says something of the Champions. I'm really hoping.)

I enjoyed exploring botw's world because there were always koroks and shrines to collect. I could wander knowing there was something in store to find. The world never felt too big or empty for this reason, and the solitude made sense because of the Calamity. In totk the number of shrines and koroks has been greatly reduced (edit: there are more shrines and just as many koroks as in botw. It just seems I'm having difficulty finding them ashfsjdf.) I know the overworld already so there not being a reward for exploring gives me no incentive to. The lack of shrines and the cutscenes required to go through to use the towers is another hindrance on exploration and quests. I can't get spontaneously sidetracked because there's no nearby place to warp back to, and I know how far I'll have to walk to get there. Traveling can feel like a chore instead of something enjoyable. It feels like the overworld has been stripped.

The world wasn't made for the new mechanics either, and so the areas to use them in are all tacked on as monster camps or fallen ruins, instead of a natural part of the landscape.

The new map content, the Sky and Depths, would have been better being condensed. They don't fit within the scope of botw's map. The Sky Islands so far don't take up much space and are significantly less important than I hoped they would be. The Depths is a fun concept and I enjoy the restrictions it puts on players, with the soft cap and kinda rougelite aspect while you're in the early game, but it's way too big, very repetitive, and there's not much point to exploring once you know what it's about. Both the Sky and the Depths would have benefitted by being more carefully thought out, concise, areas and suffer from having to fit the scope of botw's map. The Depths has poes and zonite to collect, but these things come in such huge quantities and require even huger quantities of to be useful that it feels grindy. I need 3 zonite ore for one crystalized ore, 100 crystalized ore for one fuel charge. There are three charges in one canister, of 8. That's 7,200 zonite ore like wtf. How is this supposed to be achievable? So far I haven't needed to use the vehicles all that often so it's not particularly useful atm either. The amount of cross-trading currency collectibles is overbearing. For some time I had no idea what any of them were used for so I didn't know what the point was in collecting them. Bubulgems, zonite ore, large zonite ore, poes, crystalized charges, large crystalized charges- too many. Please condense some of them.

Gone are all the very cool weapon designs, replaced in favor of the new fuse mechanic and endlessly scrolling through materials to find the right thing to attach.

The memories and the story in that aspect are still passive. Even more so.

We're all familiar with the Zelda formula- totk now follows the botw formula. Plateau area, back and forth fetch quests to upgrade your abilities, four main story beat locations, memories, and then the open world for players to tackle freely. I'm really hoping there is more. There has to be because the Sky and Depths haven't been used in the main story beats so far. In botw you could go anywhere and have everything to do in a given location immediately assessable to play through, but in totk there are things locked by progression. However, it's awkward because you aren't told precisely what's locked or why. I'm like- I went through the effort to get here but there isn't anything for me to do. I know there's something here! But I can't do anything yet and idk why or what I'm missing! and instead of building anticipation it just makes me frustrated. I'm not sure if what I'm missing is locked to progression or if there is something I've truly just missed.

So I have a feeling of having missed something important story/mechanic-wise when exploring, and then on the other hand I have the feeling of being very clearly shoehorned towards certain goals. Nearly all of the npcs have dialogue that leads you towards something. I don't feel like botw was ever this in-your-face about goals. The Calamity happened 100 years ago so the people have had time to adjust, while the Upheaval is happening now. It makes sense that the Upheaval would be much more pressing, I just wish the npcs would chat about something other than "go here, do this" once in a while. Like, I found Bolson, and instead of being greeted as a familiar face or getting to see Bolson in character, he just told me to go somewhere for a quest related thing. So many of the familiar characters are missing the quirky characterizations they had in botw that made them them.

With being shoehorned towards certain locations: many, many of the npcs want me to clear out monsters at Lurelin. So I went to Lurelin. At that point I'd only completed the quest in Gerudo and five shrines, yet the monsters I faced in Lurelin (and widely across the overworld) were black level monsters, which I was and still am nowhere near prepared for. Totk is either meant to be more difficult than botw or there is an issue with balancing. I've touched maybe 25 shrines and have lit a good number of lightroots, but haven't completed many, so maybe that's a factor into the enemy leveling? I also think there's a way for me to get help that I haven't found yet. Regardless, the enemy scaling across the world feels like it happened too quickly and I don't enjoy the npcs pushing me towards things my character isn't ready for. I feel like there should be more checks in place for this that determine the npc dialogue to the player's progress.

I haven't even talked about the story.

I know I'm being very critical with the game, and I wish I could just enjoy it. I need to stop trying to find botw in this game. And I should take a step back for a while too. I'm just disappointed.

The music and boss battles have been incredible! I hope there's more structured boss battles outside of the main four + ganon. Heck I even hope there's a boss gauntlet with a cool reward.

Just- yeah. So far I am not enjoying the new Zelda formula when it comes to totk. Botw worked for botw. totk looks and is structured too much like botw to feel like its own thing, and yet trying to play it like botw is just upsetting because it isn't.

Totk is a good game, but it's a bad sequel.

I hope the Zelda team returns to the old format sometime, or at least pulls forward some of the ideas. I miss the concise dungeons that take multiple play sessions to get through. I miss the tricky puzzles that make me feel smart for solving. I miss combat being a puzzle requiring certain items or learning boss phases and patterns (rather than sticking materials to your bow and taking a "just deal damage" based approach. I want to be closer to it.) I miss the worlds that were puzzles in and of themselves like Minish Cap or the Oracle games. I miss seeing a clearly marked spot on the wall or a tree in the way and knowing that I'll pick up an item that will help me here later. I like that there were clear solutions. The clues in botw and totk for progression are not as clear. And the botw open-world format is too large for concise puzzles like this. I enjoyed the open-ended way to combat and puzzles in botw, but I feel there should be space for both. No more ways to fenagle the physics or smack your way through obstacles. I want to see linear progression and long-form puzzles return to Zelda games, at least for the next one.

I'm hoping there's some plot twist or turn in gameplay that I haven't reached in totk yet. We'll seeeeee

[skrunglebeasts]

i think my biggest criticism of tears of the kingdom that isnt just kind of a complaint at nintendo in general, is the absence of anything from the last game. i was expecting to run into at least one guardian or see the dismantled divine beasts or something, but nope!

aside from one or two mentions and some very, very small stuff you gotta go WAAAY out of your way to find, theres nothing. its all just gone. such a huge part of the last game and its story and it all just went poof with zero explanation

[lineycantdance]

Jang Man Wol and Go Chung Myung as Eros and Psyche

In this meta, I will be illustrating how the storyline in the 2019 tvN K-drama Hotel Del Luna between its protagonist Jang Man Wol and second male lead Go Chung Myung follows the Aarne-Thompson-Uther folktale type 425: Search for the Lost Husband, while also containing elements of ATU-400: The Quest for the Lost Bride. In particular, I will be pointing out parallels to famous versions of these tales from Greek mythology: ATU-425: Eros and Psyche, and ATU-400: Orpheus and Eurydice. I am by no means an expert on this topic, so feel free to share where you disagree with me and point out any mistakes.

Before I go on, be advised: the following post will include mentions of violence, capital punishment, suicide, and all of the darker elements that were present in the historical subplot of Hotel Del Luna.

Part 1: Jang Man Wol and Go Chung Myung as Eros and Psyche

The myth of Eros and Psyche is said to be the prototypical version of the Beauty and the Beast story. Other tales classified under ATU-425 feature an Animal Bridegroom. After a taboo is broken, the animal husband flees from the bride, and she must complete a series of tasks or embark on a long journey to reunite with her lost husband.

A Mission Gone Awry:

The original version of Eros and Psyche comes from Apuleius’ Metamorphoses as a story within a story. The tale begins with the youngest and most beautiful daughter of a king and queen, Psyche, attracting so many admirers that people have started worshipping her instead of Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of love. The jealous Aphrodite sends her son Eros (Cupid) to make Psyche fall in love with a hideous and wretched creature. However, rather than carrying out his mother’s bidding, Eros mistakenly pricks himself with his own arrow and consequently falls deeply in love with Psyche upon the sight of her sleeping form. In other words, the script gets flipped on Eros who is wounded by his own weapon.

[Cupid Finding Psyche by Edward Burne-Jones]

Man Wol and Chung Myung’s first meeting bears a few similarities. After Jang Man Wol’s gang of bandits attacks Princess Song Hwa’s caravan, royal guard captain Go Chung Myung chases her down, intent on capturing the gang leader. However, instead of successfully carrying out this mission, Chung Myung becomes mesmerized by Man Wol’s beauty. Man Wol knocks him unconscious while he is distracted and takes him hostage. He is both held captive and captivated by her. Princess Song Hwa, the one who sent Chung Myung, will be playing the part of the jealous Aphrodite in this story.

In both stories, our heroine poses a threat to a royal/divine mother figure who takes this as a personal affront. A young man under her authority is sent to condemn the heroine to a dark fate. The hero fails to carry out this mission and ends up falling in love with the heroine instead.

Man Wol appears as if asleep à la Sleeping Beauty.

She flips the script on this lovestruck fool.

 The Mythical Snake-Husband:

Eros, the god of desire, is feared even by Zeus, for a shot from his arrow fills his victims with uncontrollable infatuation often resulting in infidelity and adultery. He is sometimes described as a serpent who flies on black wings. It is meant to be understood that, in a way, Eros is exactly the kind of monster that Aphrodite wished Psyche to wed.

In other fairy tales classified under ATU-425, the bridegroom is a young man, often a prince, who has been transformed into a monster, animal, beast, etc. He may take the appearance of a bull, pig, bear, snail, etc., but most often he appears as a snake or a bird such as in the Mexican fairy tale El Pájaro Verde, or the Italian fairy tale The Enchanted Snake.

Most obviously, Chung Myung takes the form of an animal when his soul is eventually transformed into a firefly. But, unlike the heroes in Animal Bridegroom stories, Chung Myung begins his story as just a regular man, not a beast or monster. That being said, when his character is first introduced in the show (and to Man Wol), we see him as a fearsome warrior and formidable swordsman. As Man Wol’s captive, he flirts with her in an attempt to convince her to let him go. At first, it is unclear whether he is simply trying to pull a fast one on her, and for a moment it seems like he is going to leave her for dead when she gets caught in quicksand. His initial shiftiness as well as his lethal capabilities make him, metaphorically-speaking, akin to a snake.

The Beautiful Lonely Heroine:

Psyche, the youngest and most beautiful of three princesses, is plagued by solitude. She despises her own beauty for making her singularly lonely. Even though she is widely adored, no one wants to approach her. She resents her virginity as it represents her loneliness and longing for romantic companionship.

It’s worth mentioning that in other Lost Husband stories, the heroine is often depicted as a paragon of idealized femininity: young, beautiful, unquestioningly obedient to her father, kind, gentle, self-sacrificial beyond reason. Compare that to her older sisters who are portrayed as vapid, jealous, and vain, the latter primarily for “turning up their noses” and refusing to marry an animal bridegroom unlike their younger sister who is inexplicably totally cool with it. These polarized depictions of femininity, while regressive and devoid of nuance, are commonplace in fairy tales, and the lack of depth could even be considered a defining genre convention (see Max Lüthi's criteria for märchen in The European Folktale: Form and Nature, particularly "depthlessness").

Although the fierce thief Man Wol doesn’t fit this model of idealized feminine heroine, she does have some things in common with her fair-maiden counterparts. She, too, suffers from loneliness, and, as a transient bandit, she is emotionally isolated. Apart from her foster brother Yeon Woo, she doesn’t allow others to get close to her.

In the first flashback shown of her past, she says that she envies trees because they don’t have to wander around. She laments that “it must be nice to just put down roots and settle down.” 

Man Wol’s conversation with Yeon Woo in front of the great oak tree reveals that she longs for stability and a way to live past her youth, neither of which her nomadic life as a bandit can provide her. When Yeon Woo offers to build Man Wol a house out of the wood from the giant tree, she teasingly turns him down. Considering the great oak tree symbolizes Man Wol’s desire for longevity, that Yeon Woo specifically promises to cut it down demonstrates the impossibility of their situation. His words to Man Wol in this scene about transferring his extra years to her are poignantly prophetic:

Yeon Woo: We all grow old. You should think about putting down roots. I can’t let you live under a tarp when you’ve become an old lady.

Man Wol: I could be captured and killed at any moment. That’s my life. I don’t even expect to live until I’m old.

Yeon Woo: But you can. The fortune teller said that I’ll live a long life, just like this tree. I’m expected to live 100 years, so I’ll give you my extra years.

Man Wol: If you do that, you’ll die.

Yeon Woo: You’re right. It’s okay, though. I don’t mind dying for you, so you can have it all.

Not only does this scene foreshadow Yeon Woo’s heart-wrenching sacrifice on Man Wol’s behalf, but it also indicates that, under Man Wol’s current circumstances, a life must be “cut short,” be it the tree’s or Yeon Woo’s, in order to secure the longevity and stability she desires. 

Whereas Psyche expressly wishes to find love, especially after her two older sisters are both married and she cannot find a husband, Man Wol's desires do not necessarily require love to achieve. However, “settling down” and “putting down roots” are conventionally achieved via marriage.

Merging of the Wedding and Funeral Rites, A Leap of Faith:

After consulting the Oracle of Apollo who tells them their daughter is to marry a hideous monster, Psyche’s parents assume this is a sure death sentence. In funeral attire, Psyche is taken to the edge of a cliff to be carried by the west wind Zephyr to Eros’s palace. She bravely accepts her fated marriage, takes the plunge, and encounters her mythical bridegroom in an enchanted palace in the forest. In blurring the lines between the wedding and funeral rites, death and love are depicted as intertwined.

[Psyche’s Wedding by Edward Burne-Jones]

The most prominent moment when a wedding and funeral are merged in Man Wol’s backstory is during her deadly confrontation with Chung Myung in the royal bridal chamber. But more on that later. Sticking to this pair’s first meeting, a moment occurs that could be interpreted as her taking a leap of faith. Man Wol chooses to release her captive Chung Myung in hopes that he will save her from being swallowed by quicksand. In tossing him her sword so that he can cut himself free, she places her life in his hands. Chung Myung in turn, rather than escaping when he has the chance, saves his captor from the brink of death.

The Heroine Grows Affectionate toward her Nighttime Visitor:

Psyche is well provided for in Eros’s enchanted palace, but he only comes to visit her at night when it is dark and she can’t see him. Initially, Psyche is hesitant about the intimacy they share at night, but eventually she grows to enjoy those moments.

In other Animal Bridegroom stories, the groom takes off his animal skin/feathers in the heroine’s bedroom and reveals himself to be a handsome youth by night. The heroine grows fond of him and the private conversations they share together, but he must disappear with the rising sun.

Chung Myung meets Man Wol at the moonlit lake to share wine. At first, she is annoyed that he has disrupted her solitude, but he tells her that the view of the lake has gotten better since he arrived because she is no longer alone. Then, he says that in the future whenever she drinks there by herself, she will be waiting for him to show up like he did that night. These words prove true, as Man Wol evidently grows to crave Chung Myung’s company so much that she is willing to sneak into the Princess’s castle at the risk of her own life just to see him.

Due to the forbidden nature of their relationship, Man Wol and Chung Myung’s trysts must occur under the cover of darkness.

The Bride and Groom are Married in a Symbolic Union:

With their marriage consummated and a bond forming between them, Eros and Psyche are no longer married only in name. At this point, they are referred to as husband and wife, not just the bride and groom of a sham marriage.

While marital and botched proposal imagery are evoked at several points throughout Man Wol and Chung Myung’s love story (which I will discuss further down below), I would pinpoint the moment they become symbolically married as when they are seated together in front of the fire, and he signs her name with her finger on the surface of a rock. This is the scene in which their bond is cemented, quite literally, in stone, and their feelings for each other are made clear.

A Voice of Doubt Leads the Wife to Act Against Her Husband’s Wishes:

When Psyche’s sisters visit her in her luxurious palace, they sow doubt in her about the true form of her husband. They make her believe that her husband is truly dangerous and convince her to look upon Eros’s true form and kill him if he really is a monster.

In many Animal Bridegroom stories, the jealous sisters or an overprotective father may directly harm the husband, believing him to be devouring the bride at night. In other variants, the heroine asks about her husband’s origin, shares his secret identity with others, or looks upon his true form when he specifically forbade it. This constitutes breaking a taboo and/or a betrayal of the husband’s trust.

For Man Wol, the voice of doubt about her relationship with Chung Myung comes from inside herself rather than from an outside source. After Man Wol tells Chung Myung that she and her clan of bandits are leaving to join the rebellion, he offers to risk his life and run away with her. But she declines and breaks things off with him.

In this impersonal statement of rejection, Man Wol alludes to the external obstacles that stand in between this couple’s happiness: her clan joining the rebellion against the kingdom that Chung Myung serves, their difference in class and standing in the law, the imminent war that stands between their peoples, etc. Although these obstacles are great, they seem to be just excuses for what is really holding Man Wol back—the internal obstacles within herself.

Needing to have relied on herself alone for so many years, Man Wol is fiercely independent and unaccustomed to letting others in. Her doubts, perhaps self-doubts, and hesitancy in commitment are the real reasons for this “break-up,” not the meddling of pesky relatives as in other Animal Bridegroom tales. In fact, the character you would expect to play the role of an overprotective or jealous family member, Yeon Woo, is quite supportive of Man Wol’s relationship with Chung Myung, and even encourages her to follow her heart when he senses she might not come back from bidding Chung Myung a final farewell.

Yeon Woo (joining Man Wol at the foot of the giant tree): Everyone’s ready. When should we leave?

Man Wol (gazing at the jug with her symbol tied to the tree): He was here. He’s probably there now. Let me go see him one last time.

Yeon Woo (catching Man Wol’s wrists to hold her back): Man Wol-ah. Will you come back?

Man Wol: Yes. Of course, I’ll be back.

Yeon Woo (dropping Man Wol’s wrists, he gives a sheepish smile): You don’t need to come back. I’ll be fine either way, so do as you wish.

Breaking the Taboo, a Betrayal of Trust:

Psyche listens to her sisters who tell her to approach her husband with a lamp to see his true identity and a dagger to kill him if he truly is a monster. When Psyche follows through with this plan and sees Eros’s true form exposed, this constitutes a betrayal of his trust. In other Animal Bridegroom stories, the wife does the one thing her husband specifically forbids her from doing which is often sharing his secret with a nosy family member. At this point, he assumes his animal/beast form and flees his bride.

[From Favorite Greek Myths illustrated by Troy Howell]

This may seem counterintuitive, as Chung Myung is the one who ends up outright betraying Man Wol, but when Man Wol allows her fears and doubts to take hold of her and forsakes her love, this can be considered “breaking the taboo.” Her rejection of Chung Myung and of her true feelings leads to a series of events that results in Chung Myung’s “beastly” form being revealed—that is, his capacity for betrayal, deception, and acting in his own self-interest at the expense of those around him—i.e. the metaphorical qualities of a snake. This might sound like a circular line of thinking (it is), but I am framing this sequence of events in this way for the purpose of reading the story as a Search for the Lost Husband tale rather than a Quest of the Lost Bride tale in which the roles are reversed. On that note…

Part 2: Search for the Lost Husband or Quest for the Lost Bride?

(a.k.a. an aside in which I ramble on)

In a Search for the Lost Husband story, a betrayal such as Chung Myung’s on the part of the mythical husband would constitute a role reversal, and thus would be incredibly rare. However, a husband’s betrayal is commonplace in Quest for the Lost Bride stories. So, you might be asking yourself, other than switching the gender roles, how are ATU-425: Search for the Lost Husband and ATU-400: Quest for the Lost Bride stories different? Well, the biggest difference is in the story’s conclusion. A Search for the Lost Husband story usually has a happy ending with the couple reuniting, while the husband’s Quest for his mythical wife is usually unsuccessful. There are a few reasons for this, which I will get into later, but for now, all you need to know is that, in general, a betrayal by the mythical husband usually results in tragedy whereas a betrayal by the mythical wife usually ends with her successfully recovering her lost husband.

Because the love story between Man Wol and Chung Myung is ill-fated, in my interpretation, it follows the tragic Quest for the Lost Bride route. It includes hallmarks of tragedy such as a permanent separation of the mythical couple (as seen by Man Wol turning her back on Chung Myung on the bridge to the afterlife) and the husband wallowing away in grief and despair for the remainder of his days (as seen by Chung Myung remaining as a firefly for 1300 years only to cross the bridge by himself). However, as I hope to demonstrate in this meta, Man Wol and Chung Myung’s story also contains enough elements distinct to Search for the Lost Husband stories that, in my opinion, it could have gone either way, either ending with permanent tragedy for the pair, or happily with a love that transcended death. The show-writers were probably well aware of this, as the show itself seems to toy with the idea of Koo Chan Sung, the first male lead, being the reincarnation of Go Chung Myung, but eventually this is revealed to be a misdirection.

In addition to containing many unmistakable elements of ATU-425, Man Wol and Chung Myung’s story already sees many elements reversed anyway. It is Chung Myung, the hero, who is associated with royalty/nobility, not the maiden Man Wol. She is the one who is an outlaw and is shown to be quite ruthless, fierce, and scary, like the villainous Eros.

A critical aspect of the Eros and Psyche myth is that both Eros and Psyche must undergo joint journeys toward individuation. As a result, their journeys can naturally be thought of as parallel if not interchangeable. In this way, having Man Wol and Chung Myung move back and forth between the positions of Eros and Psyche, or “lost spouse” and “searching spouse,” does not actually contradict the story structure of the Eros and Psyche myth. Furthermore, often a husband’s failed quest for his lost bride serves as a prelude to a switch to the feminine perspective in which the wife’s search for her lost husband is successful.

We know that for as long as Chung Myung had remained with Man Wol as a firefly, she, too, had spent all those years waiting for him to arrive at her hotel. Given that the pair was mutually waiting for the other for over 1300 years and with a curse of her own for Man Wol to overcome, when Man Wol finally says Chung Myung’s name and he reappears before her, it seemed like all the ingredients were there for a successful recovery of the lost animal husband and the mythical couple reuniting in love and joy. This is also the moment when the flower petals of the Moon Tree finally fall, indicating that Man Wol’s punishment has come to an end. Despite this, the show still sticks to the unhappy Quest for the Lost Bride trajectory for this pair.

Typically in a Quest for the Lost Bride tale, the husband's betrayal is due to his fear, arrogance, or lack of faith in/faithfulness to his wife. These attributes are then harshly punished by the story’s tragic end for him. Although perhaps fear factored into Chung Myung’s decision to betray Man Wol, and arguably heedlessness into him getting caught in the first place, his reasoning for the betrayal, rather than highlighting a fatal flaw in his character, paints him as a victim of circumstance more than anything else. He was backed into a corner by the princess and coerced into betraying Man Wol against his own wishes while making a bargain for her life to be spared. It would seem that this betrayal was not about saving his own neck (he told Yeon Woo he was planning on paying for his sins with his life afterward), but rather saving as many innocents as possible (his relatives in the castle and the Gaori villagers).

As punishment for his misdeeds, Chung Myung dies by Man Wol’s sword and remains as a firefly, unseen to her for 1300 years, both of which were fates he elected for himself. Yet, after he finally has the chance to explain his side of the story to Man Wol, and she is able to make peace with what happened and let go of her grudges, for some reason the narrative isn’t through punishing him. Man Wol abandons him on the bridge to the afterlife, and the pair is separated forever after. The remorseful Chung Myung’s ultimate fate is characterized by eternal punishment and heartache for offenses that were deliberately portrayed by the narrative in a sympathetic light. This eternal punishment, in my opinion, comes off as exceedingly harsh, especially in contrast to other characters like Man Wol and Princess Song Hwa who had the blood of many on their hands, yet were both given happy endings in which they were able to find love again.

Part 3: Chung Myung and Man Wol as Eros and Psyche (cont.)

As much as a part of me relishes in the tragedy and melodrama of the storyline the show gave us with Man Wol and Chung Myung, my biggest qualm about its ending is that it retroactively suggests that Man Wol’s decision to forsake her love with Chung Myung was the right one? She alluded to the worldly barriers that stood between them when she told Chung Myung they could never be together. She spoke those words out of cynicism and guardedness, and she was at her least authentic to herself and her true desires when she said them. And yet, the narrative ultimately proves them correct? After a millennium had swept away the conditions that had made their love precarious and impossible in the first place, Man Wol still ended up being right: their love was not meant to be; it was never meant to be. (╥_╥)

The Husband’s True Form is Revealed, the Wife’s Love for him Deepens:

Psyche approaches her sleeping husband armed with flame and steel, prepared to kill him. When she discovers that he is the beautiful god Eros, she accidentally pricks herself with one of his arrows and falls even more in love with him. In other Animal Bridegroom stories, the wounded husband flees, and the distraught wife loves him so much that she is willing to walk to the ends of the earth, often until holes have been worn into the soles of iron shoes, to find him.

For Man Wol, there are two scenes in which she approaches Chung Myung equipped to kill him. The first plays the wife’s-love-deepening trope straight whereas the second directly subverts it.

In the first, Man Wol is hiding in a shed as a runaway slave. When someone enters the shed, she jumps out from her hiding place and blindly attacks the intruder with her dagger, unaware that it is Chung Myung. It is only when he catches her wrist mid-swing that she stops and sees his true identity. Her eyes quiver in recognition. The framing of this sequence—the use of slow motion, the soft music, the pair’s heavy breathing and parted lips, the symmetry of their silhouettes—indicate that this moment is especially significant; we are watching the moment when they fall for each other.

Afterward, Chung Myung protects Man Wol by telling the soldiers who are looking for her to search elsewhere. This is followed up by a scene of Chung Myung bandaging Man Wol’s wound, clear visual language for the care and tenderness between them.

The second time Man Wol is prepared to kill Chung Myung is, of course, in the royal bridal chamber. There, she intends to destroy him, particularly the “monstrous” part of him that is loyal and wedded to the princess. She wields her sword (steel), then burns the palace to the ground (with flame).

At this point in the story, Chung Myung’s loyalties had already been put to the test after he found himself at a crossroads when confronted by Princess Song Hwa. Seeing Chung Myung’s “true colors” revealed, Man Wol, rather than growing in love, grows in deep hatred of him.

A Harsh Light Exposes What Lies in the Darkness, The Snake Recoils:

The light from Psyche’s lamp reveals her husband’s true form. She becomes so startled that, in addition to pricking herself with one of Eros’s arrows, she spills hot oil from her lamp onto him. The wounded Eros recoils and retreats to the protection of his mother, Aphrodite.

Psyche had, quite literally, been kept in the dark about the identity of her invisible husband. When she casts his true form into the light, this can be read allegorically as her leaving a childlike state of ignorance behind and gaining a sense of consciousness. This new knowledge and awareness, although initially leading to pain and heartache, is ultimately necessary for Psyche—who represents the human soul—to individuate and enter true adulthood. Eros represents Psyche’s Shadow, her repressed desires that she fears to claim. When Psyche wields the knife and lamp, she strips back her own illusions and refuses to continue living in the dark. Psyche’s pursuit of Eros—the Soul’s pursuit of Desire—elevates her from her mortal status. The product of this union is a daughter named “Joy.”

One notable parallel to Man Wol and Chung Myung’s story is that Chung Myung, under the threat of never seeing Man Wol again, leaves the signal to meet at the lake where he awaits her with what appears to be a token of betrothal.

He is exposed in the sense that he sets up this meeting in broad daylight for a change, as well as in that Princess Song Hwa arrives first to expose him as a colluder with the rebellion and a traitor to his country. Under duress, he retreats to the side of Princess Song Hwa who corresponds to Aphrodite.

However, I think the comparison becomes much more interesting if we think of Man Wol as the snake-like Eros and Chung Myung as the light-bearing Psyche. Chung Myung—the man who was transformed into a firefly and whose name (hanja: 清明; pinyin: qīngmíng) translates to “Pure and Bright”—is the light that reveals Man Wol’s true self. He draws out her capacity to be warm-hearted despite her cynicism. Man Wol (hanja: 满月) is the “Full Moon” whose glow is only a reflection of the light cast upon it (from the Sun. Yes, I’m invoking Yin and Yang here). Man Wol cannot hide her true self from Chung Myung because he sees through the front she puts up and the walls she has built around her. She shows discomfort with this vulnerability such as after Chung Myung surmises that she came to see him in the castle because she had missed him while drinking alone.

When Chung Myung offers to run away with Man Wol, his light shines too brightly, and she recoils from him. But we know she is acting against her true desires as seen by her tearful look as she watches him leave and by her impetuousness to see him one more time. The break-up scene between Man Wol and Chung Myung presents a moment in which Man Wol must confront the desires that she has been desperately trying to conceal from herself but outwardly manifest in the form of Chung Myung.

In forsaking her love, Man Wol acts in fear of her desires. On the other hand, this break-up can simultaneously be viewed as an act of Man Wol’s agency to make decisions about her own life. She is well within her rights to end this relationship as it had always been incredibly risky, even scandalous, for both involved. Chung Myung had been looking the other way and, at times, actively helping out a gang of criminals. Man Wol had been placing her trust in someone whose job it was to arrest and capture people like her. Her reasons for joining the rebellion—it’s better than living as a thief, getting caught, and dying young—see her taking steps toward achieving the stability and longevity that she wished for. It’s just that she couldn’t conceive of a way to achieve these things while keeping Chung Myung at her side (when arguably this may have been possible). I also think that Man Wol truly thought that putting her feelings aside and breaking things off between her and Chung Myung was the safest decision for the two of them. In a cruel twist of irony, however, this indirectly leads to the catastrophic series of events that occurred in the fallout of their relationship that the break-up was intended to prevent.

In my opinion, Man Wol’s character arc on the show, in addition to resolving her deep grudges and healing from her past, should have involved her learning not to run away from her desires and integrating her Shadow/animus.

The Wounded Husband Flees and is Confined, the Heroine is Tormented:

The injured Eros is looked after by his mother Aphrodite who confines him in her house for far longer than he wishes or is necessary for him to recover. As Psyche continues to seek her lost husband, the furious Aphrodite drags her by the hair and has her whipped and tortured by her lackeys Sadness and Sorrow.

In other versions of ATU-425, the fleeing husband becomes fatally ill or is about to be married off to another bride, often a monster or ogress who, like Aphrodite, holds him against his will. Symbolically, these two fates are the same as the prince’s illness is akin to being wedded to Death. Typically at this point, the heroine arrives just in time to cure her lost husband or rescue him from a loveless marriage.

After Man Wol’s rejection, Chung Myung returns, against his wishes, to the side of Princess Song Hwa. When Man Wol rides to the lake seeking him, she encounters Song Hwa instead who gleefully has her arrested while mocking her as the cause of her people’s demise. 

As a quick aside, Princess Song Hwa is wearing a completely different robe when she confronts Man Wol from the one she wore when confronting Chung Myung at the lake which could indicate that a significant amount of time passed between these two occurrences. They may have even taken place on different days, meaning Man Wol arrived much too late.

Chung Myung is forced to marry Song Hwa even though his heart still belongs to Man Wol. Our heroine Man Wol arrives on the night of the wedding to kill him rather than to rescue her mythical husband from his marriage to the Death-bride.

The Heroine Undergoes an Arduous Journey to Reunite with her Lost Husband:

In order to see Eros again, Psyche must complete four seemingly impossible tasks given to her by the angry Aphrodite (in other tales it’s usually three impossible tasks, but Aphrodite is extra mean and gives Psyche a fourth). Eros’s hand is present in the assistance she receives for each task—in the ants, river spirits, eagle, and tower that come to her aid. The completion of these tasks credits Psyche for her bravery and persistence, and therefore she is presented as worthy of her divine husband. The details in other ATU-425 stories vary widely but are largely unimportant. Typically, the heroine will have to travel a great distance, collect magical items, and accept supernatural aid in order to recover her lost husband.

After the deadly night of the royal wedding, both Man Wol and Chung Myung have long journeys ahead of them to atone in some way for the sins they committed in their lives. Man Wol becomes cursed as the owner of the Guest House of the Moon and receives assistance in the form of Koo Chan Sung who himself receives guidance at pivotal moments from Chung Myung’s ghostly insect form. 

This struck me as similar to how Eros is present in the small insects—ants—who help Psyche complete the first task of sorting out the grains. Chung Myung’s unwavering persistence in remaining at Man Wol’s side as a firefly is shown to have impressed Mago and even the Grim Reaper.

A “seemingly impossible” task needs to be accomplished for both Man Wol and Chung Myung’s curses to be lifted: the Moon Tree must bloom and wither flowers—meaning Man Wol’s heart must soften—for time to flow for her once again; for Chung Myung to regain his human form and appear before Man Wol she must utter his name, a feat rendered seemingly impossible due to Man Wol’s deep-seated resentment.

A Trip to a Realm only Accessible to the Dead, Another Way:

When Psyche is successful in completing three impossible tasks, Aphrodite makes one final attempt to get rid of her. Psyche must descend to the Underworld and bring back a piece of Queen Persephone’s beauty in a box to be delivered to Aphrodite. At first, Psyche believes that the only way to reach the Underworld is to die, so she prepares to fling herself from a tower. But Eros speaks to Psyche through the tower, instructing her on another way to enter the Underworld. He gives her highly specific instructions as well as coins for the boat ride across the river Styx. She must not deviate from these instructions lest she remain trapped in the Underworld forever.

Wanting absolution for all the lives she took, Man Wol journeys to the end of the road in search of the mythical Guest House of the Moon where the souls of the dead gather and are consoled. As the afterlife in this story leads to reincarnation and new life, it does not correspond to the Underworld; the Guest House of the Moon is more of an equivalent as it is a mythical, if temporary, abode for the souls of the dead. When Mago tells Man Wol that only the dead can go there, Man Wol draws her sword to her own neck, saying she is willing to take her own life just to get there.

Mago tells Man Wol that it is foolish to think she can compensate for her sins with her life this way. Man Wol becomes tied to the Moon Tree instead, caught between life and death and cursed to serve as the innkeeper of the Guest House.

Just like Man Wol, Chung Myung believes the only way he can pay for the debt of his wrongdoings is with his own life. It is the voice of Yeon Woo that stops Chung Myung from doing this and insists there is another way for him to pay for his sins—he must live on as a traitor to ensure that Man Wol survives.

Traps and Risks in the Underworld:

Several traps lie in Psyche’s way as she journeys to Hades, chiefly if she opens the casket containing Persephone’s beauty out of curiosity she will never return from the Underworld.

The biggest trap set for Man Wol is the possibility of her giving into her anger and resentment, becoming an evil, spiteful ghost and vanishing forever. This would mean she would never leave the Underworld of the Guest House or move onto the afterlife to be reborn.

Chung Myung, who is also stuck in this Underworld as Man Wol’s first guest, also faces a great risk there. Over the 1300 years, his soul has become weary and his light has faded. With little energy left, he may vanish before reaching the bridge to the afterlife.

Facing Temptation, Return from Death’s Clutches:

Psyche carefully follows all of Eros’s instructions and manages to escape the Underworld. Thinking she has succeeded, Psyche wishes to take some of Persephone’s beauty for herself to please her husband. But what’s in the box is the Sleep of Death, and she falls down lifeless. Eros, who has healed and can no longer bear Psyche’s absence, breaks free from his prison and wipes the sleep from her eyes.

[Psyche Opening the Golden Box by John William Waterhouse]

In other versions of ATU-425, the prince is on the brink of death or about to marry another woman when his wife finds and rescues him. To save the lost husband, the heroine must perform a task that only she can do, or use a blood sacrifice to cure his affliction. In this way, she is uniquely able to save him from a literal/spiritual/metaphorical death. 

Chung Myung’s marriage to a false bride is interrupted by Man Wol who infiltrates the castle intending to kill him. In some cases, such as with a snake-husband, a violent means is necessary to break the curse. With a snake, death or burning of the snake’s skin are typically the only ways for the snake-husband to be transformed back into his true self. Since Chung Myung has taken on the metaphorical qualities of a snake, it could be argued that only by dying and the subsequent burning of his body can he regain his humanity. Thus, Man Wol’s decisions to slay Song Hwa, the Death-bride, run Chung Myung through, and burn down the castle, while ruthless, are not, by themselves, mythically inconsistent with the ATU-425 folktale type.

1300 years later, Man Wol knows that her encounter with Chung Myung is inevitable, and she must face her temptation to give into her anger, destroy his soul, and vanish forever. However, after hearing his side of the story and learning of the promise he made to Yeon Woo, Man Wol’s anger dissipates. She is seemingly able to forgive Chung Myung, or at least let go of her resentments toward him.

The one final task that Man Wol is assigned by Mago is one that only she can accomplish: she must see Chung Myung off and accompany him on the bridge to the afterlife, thus saving him from vanishing forever i.e. spiritual death.

Recognition Motif:

After the heroine rescues her lost husband, typically there is a moment when the prince finally recognizes the heroine after their long separation and declares her his one true wife. The lost husband may not recognize the searching wife until she performs the one task that only she can do or until she shows the lost husband a gift she once received from him.

Apotheosis, Sacred Marriage, Happily Ever After:

A moment of recognition on Man Wol’s part occurs when Chung Myung’s ghost, while in possession of Chan Sung’s body, caresses Man Wol in a hauntingly familiar way. Later, she realizes that the firefly is Chung Myung who has been with her all along. She says his name, and he appears before her. A moment of recognition on the part of would-be prince Chung Myung happened much earlier in the bridal chamber when he said he wished to welcome Man Wol as a beautiful bride (his true bride).

Eros and Psyche have a proper wedding that is blessed and attended by all the deities. She eats ambrosia which makes her immortal so that the pair can be united for eternity as equals. Psyche, now a deity in her own right, gives birth to a daughter named Hedone or “Joy.”

Man Wol and Chung Myung walk down the bridge to the afterlife together, but stop midway. There, on the edge of eternity, Chung Myung offers Man Wol his hand in symbolic union one last time. He pleads with his eyes for her to join him and move on together, but she turns her back on him, departing from the mythic structure and leaving him to cross into oblivion by his lonesome. This is how their story ends.

Part 4: More Parallels and Discussion

The Husband is Rebuked by the Cruel One who Sent Him:

When Aphrodite learns that Eros fell in love with her enemy Psyche rather than dooming her to fall in love with a loathsome monster, she rebukes him as a failure. Aphrodite sees Psyche as a direct threat and is fearful of being usurped by her.

When Song Hwa finds out that Chung Myung has fallen in love with an enemy and has been in league with Man Wol’s gang of bandits instead of quashing them, she chastises him as a traitor to his country, then blackmails him into doing her bidding and rounding up the thieves. Song Hwa and her father view Man Wol and her thieves as an existential threat to their kingdom. Like Aphrodite, Song Hwa is afraid that she will be usurped by Man Wol in two ways: first, she is afraid of a resurgent Goguryeo overthrowing her kingdom; second, she views Man Wol as a romantic rival for Chung Myung’s affections.

The Beauty Repeatedly Rejects the Beast’s Marriage Proposals:

As there is strong overlap between Beauty and the Beast type stories and Animal Bridegroom stories, ATU-425 stories can be read in those terms. Just as how Eros was the one who was pricked by his own arrow at the sight of Psyche, the Beast is the one who falls in love with the Beauty first, whereas the Beauty only starts to fall in love with him as she sees past his veneer and looks into the man who is inside. The couple’s momentary bliss, however, cannot last, as the Beast is not ready to let go of his brutish exterior. When he clings to his literal or metaphorical beast-form, the Beauty must reject him. (Think Jane fleeing Rochester after his bigamy is discovered in Jane Eyre.) It is only after he makes some kind of self-sacrifice on her behalf, often involving a literal/metaphorical death and rebirth, that the Beauty finally professes her love to him. Often this declaration of love is all it takes to heal him from the brink of death.

Man Wol rejects Chung Myung’s “marriage proposals” on three separate occasions. First is when he offers to run away with her when she is about to leave to join the rebellion.

This botched proposal is prolonged; Man Wol initially rejects Chung Myung, but when he leaves the signal to meet at the lake, two details imply that, had she arrived on time, Man Wol may have changed her mind: 1) As mentioned previously, Yeon Woo seems to doubt that Man Wol will return from bidding Chung Myung a final adieu, and 2) while wallowing in self-loathing and speaking to a past version of herself, modern-day Man Wol says that she would have been happy to have received the metal brooch Chung Myung intended as a gift for her. Regardless of whether Man Wol would have changed her mind or not, Chung Myung’s attempts to risk his life and elope with Man Wol fail, and we see how things go horribly awry when the princess arrives at the lake to confront Chung Myung before Man Wol can reach him.

Man Wol rejects an overt insinuation of a marriage rite during her confrontation with Chung Myung in the chamber where the royal marriage was supposed to be consummated. He invokes the image of them as the true bridal couple by referring to Man Wol as “a beautiful bride” whom he missed and wished to caress. She is not receptive to this and reasserts her blade against his neck.

The last time Man Wol rejects Chung Myung’s hand in a metaphorical marriage is on the bridge to the afterlife.

The first of these botched proposals happens due to Man Wol’s hesitancy, fears, and doubts, as well as Song Hwa’s interference.

The second rejection in the bridal chamber is the most mythically consistent because Chung Myung is already wedded to a death threefold—1) Song Hwa as the Death-bride, 2) the imminent physical death promised to him by Man Wol, and 3) the spiritual death of living as a traitor to himself and his desires. Also, while Chung Myung’s undying love for Man Wol is on full display in this scene, at this point, he can be interpreted as still clinging to his snake-form since he continues to provide Man Wol with no explanation for his actions.

In choosing Chan Sung over Chung Myung, Man Wol only accomplishes one of these things. She turns her back on her painful past, closing that chapter in her life. But her choice does not lead to lasting joy, at least not in that lifetime, as shortly thereafter she must depart for the afterlife herself and leave Chan Sung behind. Furthermore, Man Wol’s love with Chan Sung makes no statements about an older versus newer way of doing things because Chan Sung is from Man Wol’s present. Chan Sung represents a fresh start for Man Wol unfettered by her personal past, but he does not necessarily represent a rejection of the precepts of the past more broadly.

As for the last, after 1300 years Chung Myung has finally gone through his transformation and is restored from a firefly back into a man. Man Wol rejects him on the bridge, not because he is still part-Beast, but because she has fallen in love with someone else—a departure from this story structure. This is the point at which the mythical couple, now more worthy of each other after their trials and tribulations, is typically joined in an alchemical union which gives birth to “joy” along with freedom from the pains of the past and the older generation’s way of doing things.

Compare this to a reunion with Chung Myung that would have transcended time, death, clan, class, war, ill-fate, heartache, misunderstanding, resentment, and all the other seemingly insurmountable obstacles, both manmade and metaphysical, that stood in the way of this couple’s happiness. A happy ending for this couple would signify that love is more powerful than any obstacle, that true love finds a way even when there seems to be none, and that a love that is forbidden in its time is only considered taboo due to the small-mindedness of people.

On the Bridal Chamber Scene:

I just wanted to elaborate more on how this scene merges the wedding and funeral rites. Man Wol attempts to kill Chung Myung here, but when she hesitates, he takes his fate into his own hands and sacrifices himself by running himself through. Apart from this literal self-sacrifice, Chung Myung also puts his own wants and needs aside in favor of Man Wol’s by saving Chan Sung on the tunnel to the afterlife and facilitating his reunion with Man Wol.

The final duel between Man Wol and Chung Myung takes place in the room where a marriage was supposed to be consummated. After killing Song Hwa, Man Wol disguises herself in Song Hwa’s bridal garments, clearly playing upon the idea of a false and true bride. Song Hwa’s bridal gown is rightfully hers, but in terms of her marriage to Chung Myung, she is only dressing the part. Meanwhile, Man Wol’s appearance in these bridal robes is false—it’s a ruse—but at heart she is Chung Myung’s true bride.

I find the decision to don the bridal attire on Man Wol’s part fascinating. Even if it wasn’t her intention, it’s as though she’s claiming her rightful place as Chung Myung’s intended bride. She even goes to the trouble of unveiling herself in the same way that Song Hwa did when she expected to be greeted by Chung Myung. 

Even if on a conscious level, Man Wol only wore the bridal garb in order to catch Chung Myung off guard or to vindictively shove in his face what they could have been, her “disguise,” on some level, reveals her true aspect. Man Wol may, in a literal sense, be merely occupying Song Hwa’s place in the royal bedchamber, but in this same act, she is refusing to let Song Hwa supplant her at Chung Myung’s side. Ultimately, Man Wol’s effort to catch Chung Myung off guard backfires because he uses it to garner her sympathy and demonstrate that he still loves her.

Furthermore, after Chung Myung breathes his last, Man Wol is left feeling shocked, hollow, and empty. It might have been easy to miss, but she appears to mourn his death. She even sheds tears for him, and perhaps, for herself and what she’s become.

This isn’t the triumphant face of someone who just enacted her long-awaited revenge over an enemy; this isn’t even the face of relief over not having to kill someone she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to kill. This is the face of mourning.

I might be wrong about this, but the music that plays over their final exchange of words is reminscent of Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem. This dirgeful piece of music is part of a funeral mass setting. Additionally, this piece of music is associated with the following sculpture by Antonio Canova.

[Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss]

This famous sculpture depicts the moment when Eros revives Psyche from the Sleep of Death. 

Was the choice to evoke this particular piece of music composed for funerals and associated with the Eros and Psyche myth over the bridal room scene simply a coincidence? Honestly maybe, I might be reaching with this connection ahaha.

Beethoven’s famous Moonlight Sonata then starts playing as Chung Myung’s hand reaches to hold the back of Man Wol’s head. This song also notably has the somber character of a funeral march. These same notes are played during the opening sequence of the show as Man Wol travels with the coffin containing the trinkets of her deceased friends in search of the Guest House of the Moon, which is a kind of funeral procession.

Healing the Wounded Masculine:

The heroine’s ability to save her lost husband from a dark or deathly fate is a testament to her power and the strength of her love. This can be read as a literalization of the point in Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey at which the wounded masculine is healed then subsequently integrated with the feminine in a “sacred marriage” that transcends the masculine-feminine duality.

Man Wol already acts to heal Chung Myung by letting go of her resentments toward him and accompanying him on the bridge to the afterlife. She saves him from an eternal spiritual death in the form of vanishing, thus healing the outer wounded masculine (Chung Myung). Man Wol’s self-loathing could constitute her inner masculine that needs healing as well. It can be inferred from the scene in Episode 14 in which Man Wol talks to a past version of herself that she blamed herself for the death of her people and believed that she was foolish to have ever fallen in love with Chung Myung. The curse that she creates for Chan Sung when she suspects he is Chung Myung’s reincarnation takes the form of a shadow-version of herself.

This deep bitterness that Man Wol harbors for her past self is presumably destroyed along with the metal ornament when it is dissolved by her tears at the end of her long-awaited meeting with Chung Myung—note how this differs from the recognition motif in which the heroine shows her mythical husband a gift he had once given her, and then he recognizes her as his one true bride. In this way, the shadow-version of Man Wol, her wounded masculine, is resolved by coming to accept that Chung Myung truly loved her and wasn’t playing her for a fool the whole time. This point would have been spelled out further if Man Wol accepted and returned Chung Myung’s love—if both the outer and inner halves were integrated in a “marriage.”

A Refusal to Live in the Dark:

Psyche’s refusal to live in a state of childlike ignorance/dependence is what launches her out of a state of unconscious and onto her journey. Eros likewise spends much of the story under the thumb of his overbearing mother, and he, too, must undergo a journey toward individuation. Eros and Psyche’s stories complement each other, and they must overcome similar flaws in temperament.

Man Wol launches herself into consciousness by choosing to join the rebellion. No longer satisfied with a life doomed to be cut short, she rejects her life as a thief and takes steps to achieve longevity past her youth. For Chung Myung, refusing to continue living a lie means pursuing his love even unto death, defecting, and quitting serving a princess and despotic kingdom to which he holds no strong affinity. It means following his heart and returning to the land of his forefathers (recall that Chung Myung mentions that his family originally hails from Goguryeo and jokingly says that he and Man Wol could be kin—hence, his term of endearment for her is “nui” or sister).

Both must be courageous to extricate themselves from the false families they have built for themselves, even if it initially leads to pain. For these risks, they should be rewarded with a joyous reunion. Instead, their story ends in infinite separation which, in the language of a Search for the Lost Husband story, means that one of the two is still being punished.

Different Taboos Yield Different Endings:

Earlier, I alluded to the fact that ATU-425: Search for the Lost Husband tales more often end happily while their ATU-400: Quest for the Lost Bride counterparts usually end in tragedy. One explanation for this can be found in Barbara Fass Leavy’s observation that taboos imposed on mythical husbands and mythical wives are different. For this part, I’ll borrow the words of Tumblr user @allgirlsareprincesses from her post about The Death of Love and the Lonely Soul in TROS:

In her book on swan maiden tales, author Barbara Fass Leavy points out that the taboos imposed on mythical husbands are different than those imposed on mythical wives. Men, for example, are most often prohibited from abusing their fairy brides, while women are prohibited from looking upon their fairy husbands or knowing their true identity. Leavy states: “In general, taboos imposed on the wife in Cupid and Psyche tales are often intended to keep her in her place, to prevent her from achieving some autonomy by knowing who her husband is, seeing him, or being able to disclose his identity to others.”

As these taboos are reflective of a patriarchal context, the difference in these taboos suggests an inherent imbalance in the relationship between husband and wife. Men are instructed not to abuse their power, whereas women are advised not to challenge their husbands’ authority or demand a more equal relationship. However, what is subversive about these fairy tales is that, despite breaking these taboos and challenging male authority, the women in these stories ultimately defy death. They are able to recover their lost husbands and are even elevated to royal/divine status for their courage and tenacity, thus entering into more equal marriages with their husbands.

In Man Wol and Chung Myung’s relationship, there is a clear power imbalance. As a bandit, Man Wol is on the wrong side of the law, and as a lowly migrant, she lives on the margins of her kingdom in a constant state of instability and upheaval. Meanwhile, Chung Myung, while originally of a humble migrant background, rose through the ranks to captain an arm of the kingdom’s military. He is the one in a position of power, power which he initially wields to protect Man Wol but is soon twisted against him. And yes, while Man Wol herself is the leader of her clan, her authority’s legitimacy pales in comparison to Chung Myung’s when he is favored by the princess and aligned with the royal crown.

This power imbalance is leveled on the night of the royal wedding. Chung Myung’s power is stripped from him in death as he is transformed into a pitiful firefly. Man Wol, a woman on the run, is on her way to a kind of death that awaits her as the owner of the Guest House of the Moon. Frozen in time, Man Wol becomes ageless. Unlike the immortality that is granted to Psyche which unites her to Eros as equals, Man Wol’s immortality is an everlasting punishment. Still, as owner of the Guest House of the Moon, Man Wol gains some special abilities which are showcased throughout the course of the show. She is able to influence the fate of Chan Sung’s father who appears to her on the verge of death and is able to magically protect Chan Sung at several points.

When Man Wol finally says Chung Myung’s name, he briefly appears to her as he did in his life as man without armor. It is during this long-awaited encounter that the petals of the Moon Tree fall, indicating that Man Wol has regained her mortality and must serve as the owner of the Guest House no longer. Afterward, Chung Myung is transformed back into a firefly, and he is not strong enough to make it to the bridge to the afterlife on his own. He is at the mercy of Man Wol who, after letting go of her ill-will toward him, agrees to accompany him to the afterlife. On the bridge crossing the Samdo river, Chung Myung appears as a man once more. He reaches his hand out to Man Wol and offers her the option to move onto the afterlife together, united in death on equal footing at last.

Part 5: Chung Myung and Man Wol as Orpheus and Eurydice

I’ll try to keep this section brief since this post is already way too long as it is. As mentioned previously, when the gender roles in a Search for the Lost Husband story are reversed, the tale more often than not ends in tragedy. So, since the love story between Jang Man Wol and Go Chung Myung is a tragic one, it can fairly easily be read as a Quest for the Lost Bride-type story. The famous version of this story in Greek mythology is the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. While it bears some similarities to the Eros and Psyche story, including a treacherous trip to the Underworld, Orpheus and Eurydice centers a masculine perspective as opposed to a feminine one. 

In the Greek myth, the union between Orpheus and Eurydice is doomed from the outset. Hymen, the god of marriage never blesses their wedding. In other Lost Bride tales, the powers that be may forbid the union (due to caste, clan, parent’s wishes, etc.) so the marriage must take place in secret.

After being bitten by a venomous snake, Eurydice dies and descends to the Underworld. In other Lost Bride stories, a separation between the husband and wife pair occurs when the wife dies during childbirth or after a betrayal on the part of the husband at which point the bride retreats back into her animal/swan form. With the bride lost or trapped in the Underworld, the husband must begin his quest.

The devastated Orpheus wallows and roams the earth, playing mournful songs on his lyre. Our hero descends to the Underworld and appeals to Hades and Persephone to return Eurydice to him. They agree but tell him that Eurydice must walk behind him on their way out of the Underworld. Orpheus is warned that he must not look back at her or else she will remain as a shade in Hades forever.

The hero swears he will obey whatever condition is put upon him, but he ultimately fails. Orpheus gives into the temptation and looks back to see if Eurydice has lost her footing. This “look back” is the equivalent of the breaking of the taboo from Lost Husband stories; it signifies a loss of faith or an inability to resist the lure of power or another lover.

Unlike the Search for the Lost Husband which rewards its heroine for her persistence with passionate love, the Quest for the Lost Bride contains harsh punishment for the failures of its hero. Orpheus loses Eurydice forever, and upon returning from the Underworld, he is torn to pieces by followers of Dionysus. His head floats down a river to the island of Lesbos to always sing sorrowful songs.

Another version of the Lost Bride story that I would like to highlight is from perhaps the most famous ballet of all time, Swan Lake. The ballet is about a princess named Odette who has been cursed by an evil sorcerer to remain a swan by day and a maid by night. The curse over Odette can only be broken if someone who has never loved before swears to love her forever. When the young Prince Siegfried, who has just come of age, stumbles upon the enchanted lake where Odette resides, the pair falls in love. Siegfried invites Odette to the ball his mother is holding the following evening in which he is supposed to select his bride.

At the royal ball, Von Rothbart, the evil sorcerer who cast the spell on Odette, arrives in disguise along with his daughter Odile who has been transformed to look like Odette. Thus, Prince Siegfried unknowingly pledges his troth to the villainous Odile rather than his true love Odette. Odette, who arrives just in time to witness this, retreats back to the titular swan lake, doomed to remain a swan forever on account of Siegfried’s betrayal.

Despite these Lost Bride/Swan Maiden stories ending in tragedy, variations exist that end on a happy note. In some versions of Orpheus and Eurydice, Orpheus descends to the Underworld for good and is reunited with Eurydice, to spend eternity together, hand-in-hand. Similarly, some versions of Swan Lake end with a double suicide that vanquishes evil, breaks Rothbart’s curse over the other swan-maidens, and results in an apotheosis for Odette and Siegfried who are eternally united in death.

Although different productions of Swan Lake contain vastly different endings, the original ends in tragedy. In versions with a tragic end, Prince Siegfried is killed in his final struggle with Rothbart, or Odette permanently becomes a swan while the grief-stricken Siegfried remains alone at the story’s conclusion.

The apotheosis from American Ballet Theatre’s 2005 TV version of Swan Lake.

So, how do these stories relate to Man Wol and Chung Myung’s? Well, first, it’s clear from even the very first minutes of Hotel del Luna that Man Wol’s love with Chung Myung is bound to end poorly because the show opens with Man Wol being doomed to keep the Guest House of the Moon as a punishment for killing numerous people. The mystery that unfolds throughout the course of the show is exactly what drove her to kill so many, and the answers we’re given about Man Wol’s past are all tied to Go Chung Myung.

The inciting event that takes the place of the wife’s tragic death or husband’s infidelity is Chung Myung’s betrayal of Man Wol. Like Prince Siegfried, Chung Myung fails to pledge his troth to his true love and instead pledges his loyalties to the false-bride Song Hwa.

It is after this betrayal that Man Wol returns to her ‘enchanted’ form, that is, in contrast to the true self that the ‘prince’ Chung Myung had drawn out of her, Man Wol resumes her inauthentic aspect as ruthless bandit. After slaying the false-bride along with countless others, Man Wol becomes trapped in the Underworld (the Guest House), and her treacherous lover joins her shortly thereafter.

Chung Myung’s persistence in remaining at Man Wol’s side as well as Man Wol’s refusal to budge after all those years appeal to Mago, the ruler of this Underworld, and cause her to create the conditions that bring Koo Chan Sung to the hotel. It is Chan Sung’s entrance into Man Wol’s life that leads to her confronting her past and her eventual reunion with Chung Myung.

However, the power imbalance that we saw in Search for the Lost Husband tales is not entirely absent in their Quest for the Lost Bride counterparts. When Lost Bride tales are retold from a particular masculine perspective, the happy ending often predicates upon the husband successfully subjugating his wife rather than a marriage of two lovers as equals.

When Man Wol reunites with Go Chung Myung, he appears to her in his humble attire without his armor and says few words, accepting her decision to let go of her resentments toward him while she insists that it's time for him "move on" to the afterlife. Man Wol forgives Chung Myung, but she doesn't welcome him back with open arms, and subsequently declines his invitation to move on together. Chung Myung takes a more passive role in these interactions, so I don't really get the vibe that a happy ending between him and Man Wol would have predicated on him subjugating or dominating Man Wol. Man Wol is able to let go of her grudge toward Chung Myung, but they were ultimately unable to rekindle their love.

Alright, it's high time to wrap this up. On a closing note, I would like to say this is just one lens through which this story can be analyzed. My analysis focused on the historical subplot of Hotel Del Luna which is only one of its many concurrent storylines. You can easily read the overarching love story between Man Wol and Chan Sung as a gender-swapped Beauty and The Beast story with Man Wol as the cold and conceited "Beast" who holds Chan Sung's father hostage in episode 1 only to spare his life in exchange for his son's servitude, the Moon Tree as an analogue to the magical rose, and the Hotel del Luna serving as the Beast's enchanted palace.

I hope you enjoyed this long-winded meta, and if you made it this far, thanks for reading <3

[arkon-z]

Now that the shine has worn off, I can look over TOTK with a more critical eye. Spoilers below the cut.

TOTK is an excellent game. It's an open world Zelda game done right, even moreso than BOTW, I think. But it can't decide if it's a proper sequel to BOTW or a standalone game in the same setting. Like, there's a lot of continuity, and lots of things progress as if time has passed, but some things are ignored and we're just not supposed to question it. I understand that they have to write it with the knowledge that every game is someone's first Zelda game, and they can't rely too much on a player's prior knowledge, because some people just won't have any. It wants to be a good sequel, but it just won't commit. Let's take it point by point.

Point 1 - What happened to all the Sheikah tech?

Ancient Sheikah technology is a huge, critical part of BOTW. The Shrine of Resurrection is why Link is still alive. The shrines were built to train the destined hero. The towers... were just kind of there (they had a believable explanation in HW:AOC though). The Divine Beasts were the main threat for most of the game. Ancient Sheikah tech is absolutely the driving force of the plot in BOTW. And in TOTK, all of it is gone and no one mentions it at all.

But it's still there in some capacity! Purah re-aged herself somehow, right? And there's that power switch Josha used to turn on the skyview towers; that's obviously Sheikah tech. The towers themselves seem to employ a lot of tech, so you could argue that Purah cannibalized what materials she could find to build them, and you could also argue that the original shrines sank back into the ground or otherwise deactivated once Calamity Ganon was gone. But it still doesn't explain the Divine Beasts being missing. How do you lose 4 mountain-sized animal Gundams in just a few years? What happened; did people just bury them again?

How it could have been fixed - If Purah really did scavenge all the tech she could find for the skyview towers, have her say so. You don't think she would have bragged about it? Even if it was just to take the credit for what she told other people to do? Actually, especially if she told other people to do it? You know she would have.

Also, make the Divine Beasts set pieces. Put them somewhere out of the way on the map in their respective regions and just them into landscape. Give someone a couple of lines about, "Yeah, once Calamity Ganon was gone, they just stopped working." They could be exploitable, but otherwise inactive. They'd serve as a kind of memorial and reminder of the Calamity. Which leads to my next point:

Point 2 - Why doesn't anyone talk about what happened?

I know that the story has to stand on its own because you can't rely on what the player knows going into it, but this was not the way to do it. TOTK is a direct sequel that refuses to commit. Some characters remember Link, but not all the ones you'd expect. Giving him Tony Hawk Syndrome was pretty funny, though. And while everyone talks about the Upheaval and the chasms, almost no one says anything about the Calamity.

Sure, the Upheaval is the new hotness, since it's directly affecting them in the moment, but very little time has passed between the two games. It's never said directly (this game has such commitment issues), but based on the ages of some of the kids, Mattison specifically, it can't have been more than 5 or 6 years. Even so, they should still say something. More people should be like, "Gosh, it was so nice to have some peace after the Calamity disappeared, but that sure didn't last long!" Or, "Man, just when things were going well with the peace in Hyrule, this Upheaval happens!"

Instead, they talk about it like it happened a long time ago, and the game even encourages you think the same way. The 'nostalgic hairband' and 'nostalgic fabric' nudge you to believe it happened a long, long time ago, rather than what seems to be about 5-6 years. NPCs talk about the events of BOTW like it happened in the previous decade. One of the few things that acknowledges the Calamity is the school quest in Hateno village, where the pre-teen kids demand proof of 'this so-called Calamity' because they weren't around to see it, so how do they know it happened? Like, come on. Even if they weren't born when it happened, they would have heard stories about it from their parents.

TOTK acts like it's trying to distance itself from BOTW so it can stand on its own, but it can't quite do it. It relies on so many established things that not acknowledging them feels so weird.

How it could have been fixed - stop acting like it's this disaster from a previous decade. Have more people comment directly on the situation, or remark on what life was like during the last game. They could even express frustration that they had just gotten their lives back after the Calamity and now this!

Point 3 - What about the Champions?

In BOTW, people loved to talk about the Champions. How cool they were, how much they did for their people and how much they were missed after they were killed in the Calamity. It makes sense for people to be fixated on them - Hyrule has been stuck in a kind of cultural stasis ever since the war from a century ago. Calamity Ganon is still there and thanks to his control of the Beasts and the Guardians, it is still an active threat. The people can't build new villages or explore very much because it's still dangerous. They want the Champions back because they represent hope and safety, which is something they desperately need. So during that whole century, they've become legends and the people revere them, telling their stories to keep hope alive. Everyone in the regional zones will gush about their respect Champion given the opportunity.

In TOTK, you're lucky if you even find one of them mentioned by name in a book.

Again, this is not what people are like. You don't spend a century talking about a local hero and then forget them all at once. There are some sideways hints in certain lines of dialog, like maybe an NPC mentions the weapons of their people's Champion, but no direct names. It's TOTK pretending that many years have passed by making it seem like the people have moved on. But they shouldn't! The Champions are heroes! Everyone talked about them, there were memorials* and songs; some of the older NPCs even remembered them. Not nearly enough time has passed for people to forget them like that. Link himself should be a little upset that no one is even talking about them anymore - he remembers the Champions. They're one of the few things he does remember from his previous life, to say nothing of the fact that he freed their spirits from their respective Beasts. It's insulting in every respect, especially from a meta standpoint. Nintendo went out of their way to hype up the Champions for BOTW in all their marketing, then killed them off before the game started and to have everyone just stop talking about them is so bizarre.

How it could have been fixed - I know this is for the sake of newcomers to the series. TOTK is going to be someone's first Zelda game, and you don't want to alienate them by assuming they know who the Champions are. So what they should have done was still have the people talk about the Champs, though it doesn't have to be as much. In addition, there should be one or two NPCs in town who will mention them directly, and they should have a dialogue prompt for Link to ask about them. This is not hard; both games do this everywhere. It's all you need - a brief history lesson on these important characters from the previous game to satisfy new players, and an acknowledgement of them to satisfy returning players.

Actually, you could do the same to help out with point 2. Each of the towns should have one or two NPCs who mention something about how things have changed since Calamity Ganon was defeated. Link can ask for more info, and it's the same deal - bring new players up to speed, satisfy returning players who wonder why the hell no one is talking about the previous century of plot. And they could have some fun with it too! They could talk about this 'incredible hero who saved Hyrule' and when Link says 'that was me btw', they just scoff and insist that there's no way some short, skinny guy like him could be the hero.

--

That covers most of the issues I had with continuity between the games. My thoughts on the rest of TOTK's story will have to be in another post.

*Urbosa got done dirty in BOTW. Mipha and Daruk both got statues, Revali had a platform named after him, but what did Urbosa get? Nothing, unless I'm not remembering it.

[iwroteinapastlife]

Zelink prompt- link is so in love with his princess but has no idea how to show it other than persistent devotion/dedication (poor boy has done nothing but train to be a knight and practice swordsmanship now he’s realizing too late he has no idea how to talk to a pretty girl)

This is low key a companion piece to this post, but can easily be read on its own.

***

“It’s such a shame.” The words were spoken on a heavy sigh and when Link turned to look, he found his princess gazing wistfully out to the jungle beyond. As far as the eye could see, the land was a plethora of vibrant green foliage—tall grasses, exotic flowers, and big leaved trees that didn’t grow anywhere else—all interspersed with the scattered ruins of a civilization long past. “We’re here in the center of a land rich with history and I’m stuck at the dragon's maw praying to deaf ears.”

The excursion into the Faron Woods had so far lasted about three days, and was planned for another four, but already he could see her giving up. He couldn’t blame her. Everyone in the royal guard knew the story of her last trip to the Spring of Courage. Not two years ago, the princess had stood in the holy water praying with such focus and determination that even when a storm rolled in and the water grew frigid, she refused to budge. It took her fainting from exhaustion after staying put for 14 hours straight to finally get her out, and by that time her arms were covered in goosebumps and her lips had gone blue.

Praying like that isn’t going to work. Not for her.

He imagined if it hadn’t worked then, it wouldn’t now.

“It’s like this no matter where I go,” she continued. “The Great Plateau, for example? Those buildings have been in place for centuries—as far as we know, they predate the last calamity and the golden age of the Sheikah. It is considered the birthplace of the kingdom of Hyrule! I cannot tell you how much I would love to just…go for a walk! Around the plateau! Stroll through that central courtyard or explore the abandoned abbey or—obviously—investigate that cavern of Sheikah technology Purah uncovered! But no, every time I’m there, it’s straight to the Temple of Time to beg at the goddess’s feet, and not a step outside until that sealing power is unlocked.” She crossed her arms with a huff, glaring at the jungle as if it were her father.

Link was still getting used to the princess talking to him like this—talking about real things. It wasn’t as if she had been quiet before—he was pretty sure that was impossible for her—but it was always just her thinking out loud, and never about anything personal. It was queries on the divine beasts or deliberation over the best routes to take. Not venting frustrations and sharing her true aspirations.

She feels comfortable with you.

That was a relief. It certainly hadn’t been pleasant to practically stalk her against her will. He’d wanted to give her the privacy and autonomy she deserved, but faced the king’s wrath if he did. He had thought there would be no coming back from that. But now, to have her not just accepting of his presence, but even opening up around him, allowing him to share in her thoughts…

You like being with her.

He loved being with her. He loved to watch her explore or listen to her ramble. He loved that excited ring in her voice when she spoke about the things that fascinated her, or the way her eyes brightened at her topics of interest. Those moments when she allowed him to witness her musings on history, technology, botany, were the moments in which he felt he was truly seeing her for who she was. Like she was granting him a glimpse at the girl under the crown—not the princess, but Zelda. And what he saw? Zelda?

She was beautiful.

“I would understand, of course, if it was getting us anywhere,” she went on. “But it’s all fruitless, and it has been for the entire decade that I’ve been trying.” Looking down at the ground, she idly dug her bare foot into the dirt. “It became obvious to me long ago that if there exists a way for me to unlock this sealing power, endlessly praying to a goddess who does not hear me isn’t it.”

With another heavy sigh, Zelda reached up and started pulling her hair back into an intricate braid, fingers manipulating the strands with a dexterity he couldn’t even begin to comprehend. There were little beads of sweat gathered at the base of her neck, and even if she was dressed down to only her prayer dress, there was still a flush in her cheeks and a sheen over her skin. It seemed despite the fast approaching sunset, the heat and humidity characteristic of the Faron region wasn’t letting up.

“I should be out there, exploring Zonai ruins, or at the very least, getting to see Hyrule. Do you know I’ve never even been to Lake Floria?” He was genuinely surprised by that, and it must have shown in his expression because she immediately nodded her confirmation. “Oh yes. One of the most popular sightseeing destinations in the entire continent and the princess has never been.” Tying off the end of the braid, she flicked it over her shoulder in annoyance.

Temptation itched at the back of his mind. With all other things, he was well used to shoving it down, but this? Her?

Link turned to survey the makeshift camp behind them. They were nestled safely in the clearing outside the Spring of Courage, surrounded on three sides by tall mountains, with the fourth an easily guardable river. Four of their royal guard escorts were sitting around a fire, just starting to prepare for dinner, while the other four were out of sight, patrolling the area. He knew their patrol patterns well. It would be easy enough to slip past unnoticed. The only trouble then would be explaining their absence, but he could always—

Like being doused in cold water, the ever present reminder of his responsibilities brought those thoughts to a halt. What was he thinking? Sneaking the princess out into the jungle at night? He was her personal guard—sworn to protect her and keep her safe.

She would be perfectly safe with you.

That still didn’t make it an acceptable behavior.

It would make her happy.

…

He glanced again at the princess, still staring at the trees with a mixture of frustration and longing. Link had sworn oaths—to the princess, to the king, to Hyrule. He had standing orders and codes of conduct and strict rules and regulations to follow. He had been following them to a T without issue for years.

And yet…when it came to Zelda, suddenly none of that seemed to matter, because all he could think about when faced with a look like that was how badly he wanted to make her smile.

***

Link rehearsed the words on endless repeat in his head as he approached the campfire, but that didn’t stop the wave of nerves from hitting him the moment the soldiers looked up.

Gerard, one of the longest members of Zelda’s guard, was the first to speak. “Where’s the princess?”

Be resolute in the knowledge that you only lie for her sake. You are not betraying your princess nor your people, and you know that she will be safe.

“She decided to turn in early.” The words came out smoother than he expected, lending courage from the sword on his back. “She’s…frustrated.”

Four sets of downcast eyes spoke their understanding.

“If it’s alright with you, I’m going to go take a walk around.”

Gerard was his superior in age and experience, his mentor and teacher, and yet with an amused grin threatening the corner of his mouth, he reminded, “You’re our captain, remember?”

Link couldn’t help but laugh with the others. A hundred years could go by and he would still never remember that.

He found Zelda waiting behind a tree exactly as he’d directed. Holding a finger over his lips in a silent instruction to keep quiet, he used his other hand to take hers and began guiding her through the trees. Even as he shushed her, he couldn’t help but smile at her excited little giggle.

As he thought, slipping past the guards was no trouble, and once they were finally a good distance from Dracozu River, he nodded to let Zelda know she was safe to speak.

“See, this is exactly what I meant.” Even in the evening’s twilight, the spark in her eyes couldn’t be brighter. She smoothed her palm over a weathered owl statue, gazing up at luminous stone eyes reverently as she calmly strolled past. “The Zonai were thought to be a very spiritual people, so in tune with the land and the goddesses that they even had an intimate understanding of the world’s magics.”

Link decided to be bold and walk alongside her rather than his typical two steps behind. Noting him in her peripheral, she looked up and greeted him with a smile that he knew already made everything worth it.

“So given my failing efforts to unlock this goddess power of mine, does it not seem logical that I should learn more about their culture? To try and glean what understanding I can of their spiritual ties with the goddesses so as to strengthen my own?” She peeked at him out of the corner of her eye with a sheepish grin. “Or am I just making up excuses to justify my frivolous research?”

With a solemn, lonely sort of smile on her lips, Zelda fell quiet, eyes downcast.

“I mean…” Even if he spoke softly, that didn’t prevent the surprise with which her head snapped up at the sound of his voice. She still wasn’t used to the talking either. He shrugged, “…prayer isn’t working.”

The look she gave him wasn’t convinced, but it did look a small bit relieved.

The moon was high by the time they reached Lake Floria. He regretted that he couldn’t bring her here during the day. To watch the way the golden sun reflected off the numerous falls, to feel the refreshing mist under the afternoon heat. Maybe someday he could show her. But for now, the reflection of the moonlight sufficed it seemed.

“Wow,” she whispered, a look of wonder in her eyes. She had stopped just at the clearing where the trees gave way enough to appreciate the falls. “I’ve read descriptions and seen paintings, but nothing compares.”

He found himself mirroring that joy in her expression as he took her hand and kept walking toward the bridge. Zelda allowed herself to be led by him, taking advantage of his guidance by looking all around her, similar to how a rider could appreciate the view when atop a well trained horse.

She trusts you.

He hoped so. 

Link finally came to a stop at the center of the bridge, where a semicircular viewing platform allowed the perfect vantage spot to take in the whole of the lake and its various waterfalls. Almost immediately, Zelda decided to give him a heart attack by running up to the edge of the bridge to peer down at the water below. He very nearly pulled her back, but just before he would have, he caught the wondrous smile on her face.

How could he possibly steal that moment from her?

Link instead chose to take a seat next to her, dangling his legs over the edge. It was only meant to put him in position to catch her should she fall, but Zelda seemed to take it as a suggestion, and soon joined him.

“I have half a mind to jump in.” The panic must have shown on his face because she immediately laughed, holding up her hands in defense. “I won’t! A jump from this height would be dangerous, I know.” A wistful smile took to her lips as she stared out at the waterfalls. “But there’s something…enchanting about the idea of swimming under the moon, don’t you think?”

He didn’t have to think. His own memory could attest to the subtle magical quality that the water took at night. How in complete darkness, one could almost trick themselves into believing they were swimming through the stars themselves.

Not a moment later, the laugh she made was almost heartbreaking in the way it drenched the fires of her own mind. “I’m sure it isn’t really. Just my mind glorifying the idea of something I can’t have.”

And there it was again. That touch of sadness weighing down green eyes. 

The whispers of temptation returned. Back the way they came, there were only tall cliffs at the water’s edge, but on the opposite side of the bridge…

Link stood up to get a better view. Down off to the right at the far end of the bridge, he could appreciate eroded walls denoting some sort of Zonai structure that used to sit directly on the water. Perhaps—

“Link?” Zelda stood and walked up next to him out of some mixture of curiosity and concern. “What is it?”

Yet again, just a single look at her was all it took to seal his decision. With a friendly smile, he gestured for her to follow as he started walking down the bridge. “What?” There was a subtle excitement in her voice as she trotted along after him. “Where are we going?”

Taking an immediate right at the end of the bridge, Link held out a hand and guided Zelda down a gentle rocky slope. From there, it was an easy grass trail down to the bank.

In an almost childlike manner, Zelda gasped and ran the rest of the way upon realizing where they were headed. At the lake shore, Zonai bricks stacked intermittently along the water’s edge, protecting the remnants of some sort of house or temple nestled in the small clearing. Making her way to a break in the barricade, Zelda didn’t hesitate to pull off her sandals. She immediately bunched up her dress in a fist and took a seat at the edge to dip her legs in the water.

“It’s so cold!” She leaned her head back to look at him as she said it, almost as if seeking to share the excitement of the discovery with him.

She is.

He smiled back as he took a seat next to her, crossing his legs underneath him. In answer to the question she hadn’t asked yet, he purposefully lifted his gaze to the waterfall behind her.

“Of course,” she giggled as she followed. “It’s only natural that the water flowing directly from the mountain would be cold.” She continued to swish her legs, appearing to take simple joy in the feeling of the water on her skin. “Even if it is a warm night, I suppose it’s not quite warm enough for a swim. Still,” when she looked up again, the absolute sincerity and gratitude in that gaze slammed hard into his chest, “thank you.”

Link would do absolutely anything in the world to protect that joyous glow.

With a long, relaxed sort of sigh, Zelda plopped back so that she was lying down in the grass, calves still idly stirring the waters. Link could spend an eternity counting the stars reflecting in her eyes.

“I’m sure it’s just some sort of placebo—just wishful thinking on my part—but…I swear, I have never felt closer to the goddess than I do in moments like these.” As she spoke, Zelda threaded her fingers through a tuft of grass over her head. She stroked individual blades with her thumb in that same way she always caressed the petals of flowers in her study. “Lying in a field of grass, staring up at the stars, swimming in natural waters…” Her head rolled to stare up at him instead of the sky. “Am I so crazy to believe that the answer lies out here somewhere, and not cooped up in endless prayer?”

The goddess has never thrived in a cage.

Link shook his head.

A gentle smile on her lips, she returned to the stars. “My father thinks science is the opposite of spirituality, but what he doesn’t understand is that my studies are simply a way of seeking to understand Her world. If there is any magic in me, I’m going to find it immersed in this land that She loved, not isolated in a temple, standing in the shadow of Her statue.”

She used the word “if” as though there could ever be any doubt that the purest of magics resided within her. As though the stars would reflect constellations in anyone else’s eyes, as though the sun would create a halo about anyone else’s head. No, Link had recognized his goddess in her from the very start—in the way her voice echoed memories of a life he hadn’t lived and the way her smile made the world make sense.

How she could possibly doubt that presence in herself when it was so clear to him was a wonder beyond reason.

She has to find it for herself.

He wished he could show her the way.

You have.

“Do you think…” Her fingers nervously fiddled with the grass as she looked up at him, eyes full of hope and weighed with hesitance. “…we could go out for a walk like this again?”

Doing it just this once was already a risk. Twice would be begging to be caught. Three times a death sentence. But looking back and forth between those green eyes glowing under Hylia’s moon, Link knew he would take her out like this every single night if she wanted.

He nodded, and that brilliant smile made whatever punishment was to come all the more worth it.

She just needs time to follow.

[nixalegos]

Boggled in a Bog

Continuation from HERE "Hithril, was it? No surname? No heraldry? That's almost refreshing." He said as he hefted the cast iron and gripped it near the end of its length the wrong way, and started to pull it away from himself. Symbols, runes, shapes of strange and unfamiliar magics ignited along the iron. Some so close to be recognizable, but all of them harsh, hateful shapes. As soon as the rod was filly lit up he turned it with a flourish and then with the hissing pishaw of pneumatic assistance, drove the rod into the watery muck. Nothing happened as he let go and took a step back to look at her. "Did you come here by portal, or are you a native to this place?" He asked as the clear and empty sky peeled with a thundercrack. Lighting struck the wrong way. Not from sky to ground, but the other way around. The spark of the divine turned around leap from that rod straight up, its coloration wrong, a blaring foul green, arcing its way up over the treeline and cascading out. From where they stood she could see other streaks of unnatural power reaching to join in six different directions with them at the center. Like a net, or a circus tent made of non-linear patterns of current and field. Once it was formed and seemingly stable, that current feed back into itself, and down. The lighting reached and snaked into the ground, like the stories of mad science gone horribly right. The lighting moved as if alive, arcing down into the soil, the muck, and what it touched, moved. The loops and coils reaching farther was too strong, igniting gnats and moths and flittering jittering bugs like signal sparks simply for passing by. A circuit that was overloaded and overheating. The bodies of toads and frogs long since passed burst from the wet peat with open leathery mouths, their tongues consumed by emerald fire before it spread to the rest of their diminutive bodies. Forceful resurrection by immolation and desecration. There, something larger, a badger with no arm flopped up with no fur, its teeth missing before the flames spread over it. All over, the cycle of life was taken, wrested back, and its neck snapped in favor of the warlocks desire for efficiency. And efficient it was, the huge area his lighting cage had cast over had struck paydirt only a dozen feet away from her. A head gasping with escaping gases lurched up. Followed closely by something even larger. A horses head. The dead and its rider tried in vain to obey the magic sizzle snapping in their bones, that forced unmoving ligaments to snap and flex again. Most of the chain lighting now curling in their paths to this point of larger resistance, colliding and burning the preserved flesh with bullet holes as it poured into them both. And then, as soon as the macabe ritual started, the looping arcs of fel lighting stopped, the bodies of the bog, the dozens of critters, the handfuls of beasts, and the victims too, were allowed to rest once more, collapsed ontop their own dug open watery graves. The lighting cage above them had discharged to nothing, only the scent of sulfur and brimstone hung heavier then the mist had been when he'd started, and he made his way closer towards them. The iron rod he'd used had melted under the weight of the ritual, slagged and steaming. "I'm from Azeroth, are you familiar with the realm at all?" He said casually, as if the barbaric act of violence against the cycle was totally dismissible and barely worth mentioning. @ramblingsofamoonwatcher

[hiccanna-tidbits]

@jackunzel-time

Jackunzel Month Week 4 - Fairy Tales Beauty and the Beast

***

AKAJSIFEBPYBGU NOT ME PLANNING A JACKUNZEL ONE SHOT FOR JACKUNZEL MONTH LAST YEAR AND NOT GETTING AROUND TO WRITING IT UNTIL THE END OF JACKUNZEL MONTH THIS YEAR OMG

Anyways, it’s here!!! I finally did it, it’s here!!! I was gonna write two other little drabble things for fairy tale week, but honestly?? *Collapses*

I MEAN I’LL DO THEM I PROMISE I’LL DO THEM but ain’t no way they’re getting done on time XD

So basically the story is that I saw this post last year and just. Immediately came up with a Jackunzel Beauty and the Beast-type AU to go with it in my head. At first I was like “UGH great another fanfic idea I’ll never get around to writing” and then I was like “BUT WAIT!!! Jackunzel month!!! I’ll write it then!!!” and then I just. Didn’t. XD

But then THIS year I was like “ENOUGH DILLYDALLYING BITCH YOU GONNA DO THIS” and then I guess I actually did??? Took like a week of late-night writing sessions and intensive spooky ambiance, but IT GOT DONE.

So without further ado, enjoy this bout of literally-star-crossed celestial angst! I also took a lot of inspo from the Corrupted Nightmare Jack AU here, as well as the beast from Over the Garden Wall. Kind of going for what Jack could have become if he really did join up with Pitch, even if he doesn’t exactly here. Hopefully the design I used for him is sufficiently spooky!! And tragic!! :’)

Might go without saying, but CW for a little body horror here. It’s beauty and the beast, tho so I feel like that comes with the genre XD

Fic under the cut! As always, moodboard pic credits available upon request!

***

The Sunbringer and the Shadowkeeper

The Sunbringer shivered as she made her way through the murky forest.

It felt like she’d been walking for hours and made it nowhere. The woods never changed—always the same crooked, barren tree silhouettes, their topmost branches forming jagged windows into a vast and endless night sky. Peat and old leaves squished and crunched underfoot, sometimes making noises so pronounced that the Sunbringer could swear someone else was there.

Or something. Watching her.

She quickened her pace, pulling her translucent golden cloak tighter around her shoulders. Some solar warmth still remained among its folds, but it was trickling out day by day.

The periods where the days should be, anyways.

Spring was late that year. The Sunbringer was starting to regret telling the Council of the Skies she would be the one to investigate.

By the equinox, the sun was always released from the Place of Shadows. The Sunbringer caught it without fail, holding it high in the sky as the grass grew and the flowers bloomed and the animals crept from hibernation and started families. But the solstice had come and gone, and there was no sign of the warmth-giver needed for the world to be reborn.

Now, the Sunbringer wandered through an endless winter landscape. Dead and dark and horribly cold, the only sources of light were the faint, faraway stars and the glow from the Sunbringer’s own golden braid. The further she went, the more the air bit into her skin and the winds wailed like a miserable dog. It was like something out of a nightmare.

She hummed a tune to herself, trying to calm frayed nerves. The sound of her own voice was her only companion in this lifeless place.

It was a song her mother had taught her, long, long ago. A healing incantation that could seal any wound, no matter how brutal. If rumor be believed, it could even raise the dead.

Now, the Sunbringer only hoped to dispel her own fear.

Surprisingly, the Sunbringer’s mother was not some celestial goddess, a queen of the clouds who passed her divinity on to her daughter. No, the Sunbringer had been human once, chosen for this job many, many millennia ago.

She couldn’t remember much of her human life. There were bits and pieces, scattered through her mind like tiny wildflowers in an alpine meadow.

She’d been from a small village. It was a simple life—one where she was expected to become a seamstress or a milkmaid or a farmhand girl or a grocer’s assistant or any number of other mundane things. She collected berries and herbs in the woods. She knew which mushrooms were the poisonous ones, and which ones tasted delicious cooked with butter and sage. She helped where she could—the fall harvest and the sheep herding and the chicken feeding. Her mother, who she faintly recalled being a curvy, dark-haired woman, doted on her day and night, but at the price of smothering her relentlessly. The Sunbringer had to fight to do anything on her own.

She had to fight not to have her hand held.

There was a boy, too. Brown-haired, twiggy, a constant bounce in his step. Always running through the woods and climbing trees in the summer and entertaining the younger children with goofy antics on long, frigid winter nights. He’d been her best friend. She was pretty sure, anyways.

She remembered he died young, although the exact way wasn’t clear. It brought her a strange sort of comfort, knowing that she never missed out on growing up and growing old with the brown-haired boy.

Sometimes she snatched at the faint recollections, trying to pull on the threads to see what else she could find. Her Sunbringer duties always seemed to call before she got far.

After all, there was sunshine to spread and plants to grow and cats to keep warm in little yellow squares on kitchen floors. The world was a delicate, precious balance of life and death, and it would crumble within days if she ever shirked her responsibilities.

And now more than ever, she had more pressing matters. She suspected she knew what happened to the sun—and if she was right, there was no time to be wasted.

The Council of the Skies had told many a tale of the Shadowkeeper. A creature always just beyond the shadows, he was more the dread of the darkness or the nervous tingles you got on the back of your neck than a tangible being. Those who met him said they never got a clear look, his form obscured by black tendrils and his head only a silhouette with sharp antlers and pointed teeth. When you came upon him, you felt all the bleakness and biting cold of the dead of winter wash over you.

He kept the sun swept up in his dark, swirling form all throughout the frostiest months, weakening it almost too much for the world to bear. In spring he released it, at last letting warmth reclaim the sky.

This year, the Shadowkeeper must have kept his grip on the sun, greedily sucking light into his cold body like a tick drinking blood. Hogging the sun for 3 months was no longer enough for him, it seemed.

Light embedded into the Sunbringer’s skin flickered, as it always did when she grew nervous. Long had she suspected she may have to battle the winter’s terrifying guardian, but she never dreamed it would be over something as immense as him wanting to keep the sun for his own.

Sometimes she resented being chosen for this life. It was a draining existence, guarding the heat that kept the world alive when the smallest chain reaction could leave everything destroyed.

The Sunbringer had never met the Shadowkeeper, but she believed the stories. The forest he called home was icy and frightful, and she didn’t imagine he was any better.

A heavy fog hung in the air, sticking to her skin in chilly droplets. She wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if she were to die again.

Was there any way the Council of the Skies could bring her back, use their powers to form her out of sunlight again? Or would they simply move on, letting her fade into legend as they chose a new Sunbringer?

The thought made her feel unbearably lonely—a nearly invisible wisp of a soul that could dissolve into the mist at any moment, leaving few behind who would care she was gone. The world would mourn the role she played, sure—mourn the position that needed to be filled. But they wouldn’t mourn her.

She couldn’t say how long she walked before the fog began to clear. The forest floor came into sight at some point, a carpet of brown leaves frosted at the edges.

They were cold against her bare feet. She couldn’t fully explain why, but the prickles they sent through her didn’t bother her.

Perhaps, she thought, she was so used to the heat of her own skin that a new sensation was welcomed, even if it was the antithesis of everything she was meant to stand for.

When the wisps of fog were thin enough to see the trees she stopped, eyes widening. The branches were covered in white snow, glimmering softly in the starlight.

It was a strange kind of beautiful. An unexpected piece of something pure and lovely in a world so desolate.

She couldn’t explain why, but the sight of it made her sad. Her heart felt suddenly hollow, like there was something just out of reach that belonged there.

Something to do with this tiny speck of beauty in a dead, frozen world.

The Sunbringer pushed the melancholia aside. She had a job to do—one where she simply did not have time to wonder about why she was at such a puzzling loss here.

She walked on. The leaves became sprinkled with snow—first flakes, then clumps, then a sprawling carpet. She found herself relishing the shivers it sent through her feet. Something still strange and novel, but exhilarating nonetheless.

Moonlight glinted off ice, and she saw a frozen river blocking her path. She tested it with a tentative foot, wondering if she had enough of the sun’s power left in her to float if the frozen covering didn’t hold.

The river was sturdy and strong, no trace of spring around to weaken the ice. The Sunbringer placed a foot on the frosty surface and began her crossing.

Toward the middle, the river groaned. The Sunbringer tensed as the realization hit.

There had been no spring to melt the ice until she came along.

She broke into a run, ice cracking and caving behind her. Thank the skies she always seemed to be one step ahead of catastrophe.

She swore there was something dark swirling below her—something always just under her field of vision. She knew if she stopped to get a good look, the river would have her.

Reaching the other side did not bring her the comfort she had hoped.

There was something distinctively eerie about the woods here. The Sunbringer wondered again—more urgently this time—if someone or something was watching her.

There seemed to be shadows everywhere—rippling, licking, always just out of her grasp. She heard them swooshing and whistling like gusts of wind.

But whenever she turned to look, they were gone.

Her feelings were becoming more and more of a riddle. The Sunbringer should have felt fear—crippling, nauseating fear.

Instead, all she felt was a strange longing.

The shadows were her other half, she supposed. You couldn’t truly have light without them. Perhaps that was why they called to her.

But there was something more.

The dark tendrils swirled thicker and thicker between the trees, always on the verge of engulfing her. She stopped.

“Shadowkeeper.” She spoke the word aloud, realizing where she was.

She’d reached the heart of his domain. His lair.

“Is that all you know me as?”

His voice floated in the air like mist, formless and ghostly. The icy breath of winter itself.

The Sunbringer frowned. “What other name is there? I bring the sun, you hold the shadows. That is all we are.”

“It wasn’t always.” The Shadowkeeper laughed, and it didn’t sound nearly as menacing as the Council of the Skies always described.

It was…playful. Bittersweet, almost.

“That doesn’t matter.” The Sunbringer forced her expression to harden. “All there is is now. You’ve kept the sun too long, and I have come to reclaim it. It is time for spring to come.”

“So formal.” The Shadowkeeper chuckled. “How long have you rehearsed that?”

“Long enough.” She frowned, although she couldn’t quite determine which cluster of dark wisps she should frown at. “It’s been weeks!”

“That was the only way I could see you. It’s not like you’d come out here on your own.”

Her frown turned to a look of confusion. “Why would you want to see me? Doesn’t the light hurt you?”

“Not if it’s you.”

All the flickering shadows snaked around the tree trunks and clustered together, twisting like water in a whirlpool. They spun around and around, melting from a trembling pillar into the inky form of…something.

The creature that stood before her loomed over the forest clearing. His body was surrounded by billowing shadows, floating in inky puffs like a cloak of midnight clouds. His head—or what the Sunbringer guessed it to be, anyhow—was narrow and elongated, crown adorned with the silhouettes of sharp, spindly tree branches. They jabbed out in every direction, bringing to mind the head of some strange deer that couldn’t stop growing antlers.

The only bit of color on the beast was his eyes—a pale golden that almost perfectly matched the Sunbringer’s hair. The Sunbringer found herself feeling strange again.

“You really don’t know me?” The voice that came from the beast was soft. Almost timid.

It had to be a trick. Some way for the Shadowkeeper to throw her off-guard.

Did he believe if he attacked her—if he vanquished her light—that he could plunge the world into darkness? It seemed a naïve sentiment from a spirit at least as old as her, if not older. He had to know the Council of the Skies would pick a new Sunbringer.

It was strange, come to think of it. She somehow knew the Shadowkeeper was not some ancient creature who had been around since the dawn of time, nor was he a young spirit only just learning the ebb and flow of the natural world.

To answer the Shadowkeeper’s original question, what the Sunbringer did and did not know was becoming more and more puzzling.

“I know you stole the sun.” Perhaps she should start with what it did make sense for her to know. “And I’m not sure what you want with me, but I know you need to give it back. I can’t let you make the world go dark.”

“Ask me by name, and it’s yours.”

It was an odd request, but the Sunbringer saw no reason to refuse.

“Shadowkeeper, I implore you to—”

“That’s not my name.”

The Sunbringer scowled. “Well, if that isn’t your name, then I don’t know what it is!”

“I think you do.”

The shadows swirled around their keeper, circling a few times before dissolving like smoke. Gradually his form came into view, lit only by the faintest starlight.

The Shadowkeeper—the beast—was a frightening thing. His limbs were long and grotesque, spindly and stiff like the barren trees surrounding him. His skin was rough and cracked, made almost entirely of bark. His hands ended in long, pointed branchlets, curved and sharpened into claws.

The branches on the Shadowkeeper’s head looked even more unnerving in the light. They snaked all the way down his back, all honed like a young stag’s antlers. It hardly helped that his face was still difficult to see, save for those eerie yellow eyes.

Her eyes trailed across his body, and she started. There was something pale under the bark, barely visible behind thickly-woven black tendrils.

Human skin, slowly being suffocated by wood. Before long, it would all be buried too deep for anyone to see.

The Shadowkeeper was once an ordinary person. Like her.

“Does it hurt?” Her voice came out in a strangled whisper.

The Shadowkeeper glanced down, as if just noticing the bark that was choking out the softer flesh underneath. He chuckled.

“To be honest, I’ve stopped noticing. Does it hurt when you hold the sun?”

Despite herself, the Sunbringer laughed too. “I guess…I’ve stopped noticing, too.”

The Shadowkeeper took a pace toward her. The Sunbringer surprised herself when she felt no desire to back away.

Something on the Shadowkeeper’s back caught her eye, and she cried out. Protrusions she had thought were just more branches were arrows.

She knitted her brow, suddenly concerned. “People hunt you? In your own forest?”

The Shadowkeeper snorted. “Maybe they think they can get rid of winter that way. I’m usually too quick for them to land a good blow, but not always.”

“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to live in fear.”

The Shadowkeeper shrugged, the bark of his shoulders creaking. “Eh. What can you do? I pretend it’s an intentional fashion choice.”

The Sunbringer found herself laughing again.

She gave him a thoughtful look, wondering if she’d been wrong. “You…don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

“No.” The Shadowkeeper looked at her with such a sorrow that it took her aback. “Who do you think helped you across the stream? Who do you think made sure the places you stepped were always frozen?”

“That was you?”

Her eyes widened, picturing the dark swirls under the ice and not quite believing they were something benevolent. “You were really trying to help?”

“Always.”

His voice was quick and certain, and she was left baffled once again. “But why?”

He takes a breath before answering.

“Because we were friends once, Rapunzel. A long time ago.”

Rapunzel…

The Sunbringer almost fell back onto the snow.

Memories so vague before came stampeding back at full force. She remembered everything—the bedroom her mother locked her in, a fluffy bob of brown hair, weaving flower crowns for her best friend’s sister, dancing around the maypole at summer festivals, the ice pond that had drowned her best friend.

Her best friend.

“Jack.”

She breathed out his name in a ragged sob. For a moment she stood with her head spinning, wondering despondently how she could have ever forgotten Jackson Overland.

“Took you long enough, Zellie.”

She ran to him, throwing her arms around rough skin and burying her face in his chest.

Bark groaned as his arms wove around her, pulling her closer. She felt wooden tendrils twist across the surface of her gown, entwining them together until they could have been one being.

Rapunzel thought back to the cramped room in her human home—the one her mother made her prison. With Jack’s branches surrounding her, she found it strange she didn’t feel trapped.

On the contrary, she felt safe. She felt loved.

“I’m so sorry,” she choked, face wet with tears. “I’m sorry I—I don’t know how I…”

“It’s all right.” He murmured into her hair, voice soft. “For…a long time, I didn’t remember you either. Then one spring, I looked up, and saw you floating through the sky like this…miracle of nature, and…” His voice broke. “It was like you never left my mind.”

She looked up and met his eyes, getting a good look at his face for the first time.

It wasn’t quite what she remembered. Framed by spikes of inky black instead of chocolate brown. Stretched, slightly distorted. All ghostly skin and sharp angles. Like the lengthened shadows at the end of the day. Like something in the half-light.

She reached out a hand and cupped his cheek. It was so frigid her hand stung.

She didn’t let go.

He leaned into her palm, amber eyes slipping shut. Long, sharp fingers slithered into view, his clawed hand coming to rest gently over hers.

The frightful tales of the Council of the Skies seemed laughable now. She couldn’t be scared of Jack, not when she knew how bright and good and kind he had once been.

How much he still was.

It seemed none of that tenderness ever left, monstrous form or not. He was still her Jack, even after everything.

“I missed you,” she whispered. “I felt so hollow. I didn’t even realize it, but…it always felt like I lost something. Why didn’t you ever come find me?”

“I can’t—I can’t leave this place.” He blinked down at her with wet golden eyes. “I’m not strong enough to come out of the shadows. Going out and finding you would be like—like trying to make a blizzard in June.”

“But in the winter?”

“You’re always too far to reach.” He smiled sadly, shaking his head. “I see you, flying through the clouds and glowing bright enough to warm the whole world. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in all the dark crevices—down on the ground, wanting to run to you every chance I get. But the light beats me back every time I try. So…that’s why I had you come to me.”

His hand uncurled from her back, sliding around to form a closed fist in the air between them. As his fingers opened, Rapunzel gasped.

There was the sun, golden and radiant and as mellow as it was on spring mornings. It looked strangely delicate, floating in Jack’s hand in a tiny, flickering orb.

Odd to imagine something that seemed so small and insignificant gave life to all of earth.

“At the end of winter, you always waited for me to release it.” Jack’s voice was suddenly pained. “You floated above me and got ready to catch it, but…you never looked at me. You never saw me.”

She stroked the cold skin of his cheek with her thumb. “I see you now.”

“All according to plan.”

He smirked in a way that made her raise her eyebrows.

“I knew you’d never give me a second thought if things went on like they did. I was this…menacing thing that tossed you your sun sometimes. Always just out of sight enough to make the tales of horror seem true. So one spring, I didn’t toss you your sun. I made you come and get it.”

“And so you did.” She laughed, pressing her forehead into the craggy bark of his chest. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Jack. A forest that gives a girl the scare of her life is no way to treat an old friend.”

“Sorry about that.” He chuckled sheepishly. “Wish I could curate a bit of a warmer welcome. Unfortunately I am, in fact, a guardian of winter and darkness and other related spooky things.”

“Well, I suppose it’s my own fault. I was the one who volunteered to roam the creepiest forest in existence to find you.”

“Also planned on that.” He snickered into her hairline, and she scowled.

“What do you mean?!”

“You always have to bend over backwards pleasing everyone. I remember how you were with your mom.”

Rapunzel huffed. “I like to think I’ve grown a little as a person in the past millennium or two.”

“Maybe, but…you’re still not going to ask someone else to do something you figure you could take care of yourself.”

She sighed. Even after all this time, he still knew her well enough to predict her every move.

“Oh, get out of my head, Jackson Overland.”

“You wish.”

Something nudged her side. She turned her head to see Jack extending his hand to her, sun gleaming in his palm.

“I believe I have something of yours.”

She scrutinized it for a moment. It was strange—the end of her journey was so close and so tangible, and yet…

Rapunzel didn’t want it anymore.

“Take it.” The rough edges of Jack’s fingers nudged her again. “It was selfish of me to keep it so long, anyways. And now I got to see you, so…”

She reached out and closed her fingers around the bright sphere.

Immediately she felt its power course through her, setting every vein in her celestial form ablaze. Warmth rippled beneath her skin, seeping into every crack and crevice that had grown cold. The corners of her vision were flooded with a blinding glow, and it took her a moment to realize it was her.

Suddenly, she was expanding, the sun’s power swirling around her body as she grew and grew and grew. She felt like a supernova—a radiant burst of light on the verge of giving birth to a new galaxy.

Within moments, she was standing as tall as the Shadowbringer. As Jack.

He looked different from up here. His eyes were close enough now that she could see the playful shine in them. She could make out the thin curve of his lips and the boxy shape of his ears and the rounded bridge of his nose and eyebrows that always had a rebellious hair or two out of place. Everything about him was so achingly familiar that she wanted to cry.

She glanced down at their hands—still intertwined. Jack never let go after she took the sun.

It might have been her imagination, but his clawed fingers looked a little shorter. A little less pointed.

He laced their fingers together and held on tightly, as though scared she might dissolve at any moment.

Like an afternoon sunbeam when the evening was looming.

Her thumb ghosted over the back of his hand, trying to communicate a silent reassurance.

I’m here. I’m real. I’m not going to leave you again.

She hadn’t meant to disappear in the first place, but it was no matter. It was still a mistake she was not keen on repeating.

Rapunzel looked up, and their eyes met again. She remembered something else.

She remembered how she looked at him when they sat tucked away in the treetops, him telling her stories and her sketching his movements on a tattered paper pad. She remembered watching him do skits by the fireside and splash her in the lake in the summer, and how she felt something so profound that for weeks and months and years she couldn’t put a name to it.

All she could do now was try and speak with her heart. Rapunzel leaned in and pressed her mouth to the Shadowkeeper’s.

Pure energy exploded through her, and all at once she felt so gloriously alive. It was as if she had become the entire sky, unbounded and immeasurable and shining with every color—cerulean blue, peach pink, blinding golden, deep violet, tangerine, fiery red, soft white, ebony black.

Jack’s arms wrapped around her again, pulling her closer. It felt like every moment in the universe—every passing day, every time the sun had risen and set—had been leading up to this.

It was more powerful than all the stars above them combined.

Perhaps that was only her biases talking. Perhaps she only imagined it to be that way, considering she had yearned for this longer than she would ever know.

It was like coming home to a hearth and a cozy bed after a long, long journey. One that had taken her much farther than she ever wished to go.

And it was right. Something—she couldn’t tell quite what—had been so asymmetrical before.

Now it was perfectly centered.

A deep, warm calm settled through Rapunzel as she pulls away. Jack watched her with soft blue eyes.

Blue eyes.

He’d changed. Eerie amber faded into sparkling ice blue. Inky back hair was now tinged with a beautiful, crystalline white, like fresh snow dusting winter treetops. Bark begun to peel off his skin, revealing more and more of the boy Rapunzel remembered.

He smirked in a way that made her feel lighter than she had in perhaps a century. She laughed, resting her hands on his cheeks and pressing their foreheads together.

“I love you.”

It was the first time she had truly put it into words, but she was certain some part of her had always known.

She knew when they were children, chasing each other through the woods and jumping in leaf piles and sledding down steep hills in the winter. She knew when the boys and girls at school began to kiss and hold hands, and she found her eyes always straying to Jack, wondering if his lips tasted like peppermint hot chocolate and stories and mischief. She knew when she heard he’d drowned in icewater, and it felt like half of herself had suffocated right down there with him. And she knew for all the centuries she thought she forgot about him, even if it was buried deep inside.

She felt wetness against her face, and realized he was crying.

He let out a shaky, relieved laugh. “I love you, too.”

Sharp cracks and snaps rang out as more bark peeled off. The body beneath Rapunzel’s fingers grew softer.

More like the one she had always yearned to hold, all those years ago.

And suddenly Rapunzel knew. She knew exactly what she had to do to finish this.

She knew what she had to do to fully pull Jack from the dark shell—the prison—that had grown around him, fueled by all those centuries of being feared and alone.

One of her hands strayed from his face, grabbing a tendril of blonde hair and wrapping it around a spindly, twiglike wrist. His long fingers curled over hers, shaking nervously.

Even so, Jack made no move to pull away. He must have trusted her fully.

She began to sing.

Rapunzel’s mother may have been an eccentric woman, strange at the best of times and terrifying at the worst. She may have had some unusual ideas about what it was to “love” your daughter, too.

But she had been right about one thing: The incantation she taught Rapunzel could heal anything.

Sunlight slipped down blonde hair, radiating soft gold as it went. The glow trickled across Jack like honey, and Rapunzel could only hope the heat didn’t hurt.

It appeared not to. Jack’s eyes slid shut, contented. His hand went limp in hers.

The hand that, to her amazement, was starting to feel less and less like gnarled twigs and more and more like skin.

The glow faded. Blue eyes opened under a mop of pale hair, white as afternoon clouds. Rapunzel felt fingers lace between hers, holding tightly.

They were a perfect fit.

The hand he lifted to cup the back of her neck was fully human. She smiled into his mouth and kissed him again.

Down on earth, folk across every land and every sea would later say that spring began with the most spectacular sunrise any of them had ever seen.